The inspector’s face seems to crumble at the corners, apology beginning to creak through.
‘I’m sorry, we don’t usually accept without a ticket at this time of night,’ she says.
‘We have cash, please! And if you put us in a cabin, we would be out of the way, you wouldn’t hear from us again! We’ll be good as gold!’ Amina gushes.
The inspector lets her kindness show, and her features relax. ‘Anniversary you say?’
‘Three years,’ replies Amina, quick as a flash.
‘Leather,’ says the inspector, misty-eyed.
‘Excuse me?’
‘That’s the traditional gift for the third wedding anniversary. First is cotton, second is paper, third is leather.’
I barely suppress an eye roll, hoping this exchange will fizzle and we can batten down the hatches.
‘Of course, leather,’ Amina giggles, then turns to me. ‘I forgot all about that!’
I simply smile and shrug, as if to say ‘hey, I’m just a simple husband! What do I know!’
‘We have two cabins empty right at the front of the train. Pick one, be quiet, and don’t let me down.’
Amina actually hugs the inspector, who in turn hugs back. They could have known each other for years, by the looks of things. ‘Thank you! Thank you so much! What do we owe -’
‘Away with you. Go. Now!’ says the inspector, shooing us along with a flick of both hands. We smile, thank her profusely and sneak down the corridor to the left, along the second car.
I’m genuinely struck by her kindness, not to mention her apparent willingness to bend the rules if she feels like it. So the romantic, storybook impression I got of the Sleeper was pretty accurate. It’s a track-bound microcosm of good feelings, bygone times, smiles and secrets, swishing its way through England’s quite villages right to the heart to of the big smoke.
The train begins to move, and I motion Amina to the door at the furthest end of the corridor, which opens without problem. As I swing the door open, I am met by darkness, except for the winking cats eyes of glinting surfaces from within. Reaching around the doorframe, I find a light-switch, which douses the room in cold, clinical, unfriendly tungsten, which reveals the room to contain a single cot bed next to a basic washbasin, and a side table, under which there is a luggage store.
‘The Ritz on iron wheels’, says Amina, as she shuts the door behind her. And that is when I spring into cold, harsh action which is as uncharacteristic for me as it is characteristic. I hate myself for doing it, but I act without hesitation or compromise. I start by wordlessly throwing Amina onto the bed, her surprise rendering her floppy with no hint of resistance.
I listened for sirens all the way in, and heard none. It alarms me. Aside from the radio update, urging the public to watch out for Amina’s vehicle, there has been no sign of pursuers. They were dogged and dedicated it seems, but now... nothing. I am wary of this, that is for sure.
I run the tap, a full noisy stream, which will serve two purposes. It will mask the sound of the horrible deed I am about to undertake, while at the same time giving me one half of a cynical weapon with which to iron out the truth behind Amina’s intentions. I desperately want to take this game girl on face value, but I haven’t got this far in life, through the scrapes I have survived, by presuming everyone’s smiling innocence. If she wants to go further in this game, she will have to sing for her supper, and I don’t like it one bit.
I sit on her chest, pinning her down, and she utters something eastern European which I don’t understand. Even though it is dark, I see her fear begin to shine through, and her eyes brim with tears. No turning back now, Ben, although I have a history of being a sucker for puppy dog eyes. I pin both her hands behind her head, and lean in close.
‘I’ve been at war with myself, as to whether I should be trusting your or not. I’ve known you for a matter of hours, and ever since that moment, I have barely had a whiff of pursuit. Either you have saved my bacon completely, or my enemies have cooled off because they actually have me already. And that’s where you come in, Dr Ridgewell. A government employee, in a crooked government. What did they offer you? No, actually what did they promise you?’
I put a hand over Amina’s mouth to stop the frothing words from another tongue spraying out.
‘Did they promise you world peace? Did they promise they’d use that disgraceful substance for the good of mankind? For the good of the country?’
I feel a hot pinch in the middle of the hand that is over her mouth, and I pull away subconsciously. Jesus, she is a fighter. If it weren’t for the thrashing beneath my body weight, I’d sure have got it now that she has nipped a chunk from my finger.
‘Fuck you and your country,’ she lashes, her accent the strongest I’ve heard it, vowels stretched angrily and harsher consonants rasped. I’ve seen it happen many times, people reverting to a previous or reset state under intense stress. It is like forcing someone to devolve. Like a mind fights the stress by reacting in a version that is less polished but more natural. More instinctive. And in that sense, I can understand why. Never mind dogs - instinct is a man’s best friend.
Just by the bed, on the opposite side to the sink, is a small side table furnished with a couple of face towels, two disposable toothbrushes, and two plastic tumblers. I dig the fingers of my left hand into Amina’s clavicle, just at the top of her chest, gripping the bone through her jumper like a handle on a climbing wall. The more I squeeze my fingers behind the bone, the more the pressure point is agonized. It cuts the thrashing down to a contorted spasm, and I have her locked in place. Reaching to the table, I take a flannel and douse it in the flowing water, drenching it thoroughly, while never letting loose my grip on Amina.
‘I want the truth,’ I say, ‘And one way or another, I am going to get it.’
She can barely move nor speak, the pressure grip combined with my body weight providing all the containment necessary. She looks stuck, weak and defeated, as I put the soaking flannel over her whole face, mouth included.
‘I need to know if I’m safe with you, or not,’ I say. ‘I want to know if I can trust you, and I want to know what your motivations are.’
And with that, I fill one of the tumblers, and pour it over her face, drenching the flannel again. It is a despicable act, horrible to the core, and one that is as controversial as it is useful. There is a reason UK and US armed forces employed water-boarding during the Iraq and Afghan Wars. It is feared, despicable and bloody good at getting answers.
‘You can’t last long, with me doing this,’ I say, slowing the stream to a dribble, but then increasing the flow again. I pull the flannel away briskly, and she gasps in my face, lunging for air. ‘Breathe, breathe. That is what drowning feels like.’
And I replace the flannel, and pour more water down onto her face. The words I have just uttered sicken me. I didn’t need exhaustion or fever to encounter a grotesque vile beast - there has been one dwelling in my own character all this time. The guilt in myself is swelling with the urgent build of a tornado, taking a powerful hold inside me, but I must keep going. Who knows how many lives I might save if I get this right?
She writhes, and I wait until I can’t take it anymore, before pulling the flannel away.
‘Don’t make me do it again,’ I tell her.
She breathes, weaker again, and I can feel her body below mine loosen and uncoil. She is beaten, the fire in her put out. I let her catch her breath, and she speaks in a tiny cracked voice.
‘Kosovo. My roots are in Kosovo.’
That rings a bell, but only in a current affairs sense. I know that the very end of last century, Kosovo was a nation torn by violence and subsequent war.
‘What difference does that make?’ I ask.
‘You talk about allegiance to your country, it seems to be the main thing that keeps breathing. I have no allegiance to England at all, but I am grateful.’
I fall silent but hold her firmly. Something doesn’t feel right.
<
br /> ‘You are so obviously a war man. It is your character. So much of you is consumed by fulfilling orders at whatever cost, while what’s left is twisted by the ordeal of doing exactly that. You think I don’t understand what is at stake here, but I know of war. I know exactly what it is like to be in conflict. But youchose conflict! Conflict was thrust upon me. You know no other way -’
‘I do!’ I meekly interrupt, but I can’t help beginning to feel like the worst human being going. It seems I have misjudged this situation terribly.
‘You know nothing! You left your pretty little England to seek blood. Blood came to my front door and took everything I love. I came to England for escape!’
I feel my grip releasing slightly, but I still stay on top of her, however inappropriate it feels.
‘I was 16 in 1999. I was good in school, I was happy, I had good friends. I had a family, my mother, father and two brothers, aunts, uncles, a couple of grandparents. Yugoslav forces ripped us from our homes and made us refugees, while all the while the rest of the world was trying to decide what to do with us, with each suggestion as violent as the last. But we were down there on the ground, moving from place to place, hoping that whatever the self-appointed police forces of the world decided to do, we wouldn’t be anywhere near it. You cannot imagine what that was like. But it was our togetherness that was our downfall, and we made ourselves a big target. We always had so much to lose, in our affection for each other. Serb militia caught us, and we were doomed. My brothers throats were cut in front of my parents, and my parents throats cut in front of my grandparents, before they were given the same fate. And I was kept as a plaything, a 16 year old toy. I was passed from pillar to post while I watched my family bleed into the mud. So don’t tell me I have any secret motives here, or desire to involve myself with corrupt government, villains and their greed. It was the greed of such men that took everything I held dear.’
I am dumbstruck. I can’t even look at her. Some might argue I was just fed a perfectly measured depth charge of emotional blackmail. But the tears streaming onto the pillow, the shake of her voice, the vehemence of her words, all scream at me that she has just told me the truth.
And all I can do is lower myself next to her, and pull her into me. She doesn’t cry, or resist, or lean close. She just lets it happen. I can tell she is back there, in the horrors of the Kosovan War in 1999, and I am just another man forcing himself upon her against her will, with her merely resigned to the horror of it, watching misty-eyed while acknowledging everything is lost.
I whisper ‘I am sorry’.
All I want to do is hold her, to transport her from the memories I so terribly dragged back up, and the awful act I committed against her. I will hold her until morning if she will let me, all the way to Paddington.
MONDAY
14
I sleep the sleep of a man who knows he has done wrong. I sleep so deep yet forced, so fitful yet unbroken, as my subconscious pretends that what I did didn’t happen at all, and if it did somehow happen, surely it is not the time yet to wake and face up to the consequences of it.
I stir, but don’t open my eyes. I am almost too ashamed to. I don’t want to see Amina looking at me, all her faith in me gone, replaced by contempt and begrudging obligation to the duty I have made her face. So I lie there, barely moving, while I come round, and gear up to confronting what happened. I know why I slept as soundly as I did - I saw the naked truth of Amina’s character, what made her who she is. And she is not someone to be feared. She is someone to be trusted, respected and protected. For all she has been through, the last person who would do me wrong in my sleep is someone in her position. And my ridiculous subconscious took advantage of that, letting me use the time next to this emotionally wounded woman to get some proper sleep.
It seems even my subconscious is a proper bastard.
As my senses come back to me, one at a time, and I can confirm that I am no longer asleep, I work out that the train is stationary, and that I am not touching anybody. Amina is out of the bed, and with that I crack open my eyes.
Immediately I see that the cabin is flooded with soft daylight, and facing out of the window, her arms folded and her hair ponytailed, stands Amina.
There is defiance to her posture, as well as reflection. I can’t see her face, but I can’t take this anymore.
‘I am so sorry,’ I say, my words coming out in that fractured, dying-frog manner with which they always do with the first utterance of the day. It makes me sound like the cat that got the cream, and I feel all the more like a complete shit. ‘I wish for all the world I could undo what I did.’
She turns to me, her eyes revealing that same glassy acceptance, and I know her trust in me has been utterly extinguished, not to mention any fragment of respect. I sit up, my body aching like a marathon runner’s as the muscle fatigue of the exertions of the last few days begins to settle in.
‘You are so correct in everything you said about me. I am a man warped by his experiences. You are absolutely correct when you say I know no difference. I bring a wartime appetite to everyday life and it is not right. And you are right when you say I know no other way. I wish I wasn’t the way I am, and I know it is my choices that led me here.’
She just watches me, her hands folded, her face a mask of detached dignity. My words don’t seem to enter, and I’m sure they will make no difference, even though I can’t help but try.
‘I promise,’ I say, ‘that I will do anything and everything I can to protect you in what is to come, and I will never doubt your intentions again. I need your help, and I will never abuse your trust again. I promise you.’
I could ask for forgiveness, but I don’t want it. People who earn people’s trust and then torture them when their guard is down, don’t tend to deserve too much by way of forgiveness. I can’t read her, and she seems to look clear through me. I have hurt her so deeply that I am nothing anymore, just another man who did what he liked with her. She seems to be in full business mode, and we are way passed pleasantries. The playfulness, that mischief of character is so long gone, and I know it was me that flushed it out of her by bloody water-boarding her last night.
In a dull voice, devoid of spirit, she utters: ‘We are in London. I think we need to get going.’
I want to grab her, apologize until she shows me something of the old Amina, but the hate for myself gets in the way. I have always been able to make the hard decisions, but I always felt that my judgement was shrewd enough to guide me through those decisions with a steady, just hand. How my gut has failed me on this one...
I get out of bed, and wash in the sink, using that same flannel from the night before. It almost feels symbolic - you can’t wash away sins with the very tool that created the sins in the first place. When clean, I grab the cleanest clothes from my pack and dress quickly. I decide business is the best way to proceed at this point, to bring focus back to our objective and to make the first step away from this humungous white elephant I just bulldozed into the room.
‘What time is it?’
‘6.10’ she replies, as I notice that she herself has changed into a different sweater and jeans. I could ask if she’s ready but I bet that she is. I bet she can’t wait to get out of this infernal cabin.
‘And we are in Paddington? Did I remember that correctly?’ I had remembered just fine, but I want to keep her thoughts on other things.
‘Yes, that’s right.’ Her bags are by the door, as if a porter might come and escort them away any minute.
‘Good. We did well making it to the capital. That plane wreckage really feels like ages ago now,’ I say, almost apologetically for including such pointless small talk. ‘I think we should head to somewhere in striking distance of Westminster, since that seems to be where our enemies collude. And I need to contact my friend again. Let’s get a black cab and ask for a hotel nearby.’
She gives a single nod.
‘Is the cargo still OK?’ I ask.
‘Yes, I chec
ked it twice before.’
‘Good. Then let’s get moving.’
I open the cabin door, checking each way down the corridor, the morning light flooding in through the open station roof high beyond the train car windows. I walk to the door we entered from last night, with Amina keeping pace just behind. Glancing into the next car, I see people still asleep in their seats. They must let you finish resting before turfing you off. One click of the green door release, and we are out into the brisk, oiled air of a train station at dawn.
I don’t know what to expect here, and I feel perilously like we have just entered the lions den. We start walking down the platform to the main station body, which seems to be a huge arced aerodrome, like us humans have decided to make something out of a discarded tin can left by giant, God-like benefactors. I see people ahead, and inspectors by the main glass doors to the cavern - who are already looking at us.
If they want to check our tickets, we will be in a real tight spot. Questions will be asked, time will be taken, identities will be scrutinized. I don’t fancy that. We need a diversion, and we are getting closer.
Apex (Ben Bracken 2) Page 14