The Walking Dead

  She crossed the garden area, overgrown with grass and weeds, ignoring the rubbish scattered there, and went through the broken fence on to the waste ground. Faria retraced the way she had come from where she had left them, went to tell them that she had found a safe-house, that the trust in her was well justified.

  'The prosecution's case, members of the jury, is a concoction of innuendoes, half-truths and–believe me, I get no pleasure from stating this, but it must be said–slanders against the good names of my clients. I am asking you, most earnestly, in the name of justice to reject that concoction.'

  Banks listened from the public gallery, and thought he despised the barrister.

  'Much has been made by the prosecution of the supposed identification of my clients by that conveniently produced eye-witness. I urge you to reflect on how much weight you can place on the word of a young woman, scarcely out of her teens, who has lived for months cheek by jowl with police officers, who, of course, are anxious to obtain a conviction. I am not saying she lied…I am saying that she was influenced–I am prepared to believe in her innocence–by those officers. I put it to you that this simple young woman, without education, has sought to please. Can you say, in all honesty, that her evidence was not doctored, was not rehearsed under the supervision of the officers? I doubt it.'

  He had not, of course, seen the witness give her evidence, but he had Wally's description of her. The inspector was beside him, his body tilted back and his face impassive. What David Banks thought, as the barrister droned, was that the previous evening–for a mature adult, who'd been given responsibility, had been issued with a killing weapon–he had made a complete and utter idiot of himself. It had gone on too long.

  'You find yourself, members of the jury, asked to convict two businessmen whose sole interest in life–other than caring for their sick mother–is trading, buying and selling. I cannot tell you that their dealings with the Revenue are totally transparent. Nor can I say that their returns on VAT demands are wholly satisfactory…You are not, and I emphasize this, judging my clients on matters of taxation. You are hearing a case that involves a quite desperate and reckless attack on a jewellery shop, and the prosecution's efforts to vilify my clients–in respect of it–have failed.'

  The barrister's voice had an oiled sincerity. Never could tell with a jury, Wally had said. Unpredictable, they were. Could be swallowing what was served up to them–not one of them, his Principal. His Principal, for what it was worth, had played hero. What happened to him, weeks and months ahead, was not Banks's concern. What was his concern, it had gone on too long. He squirmed in his seat.

  'I will say what I can on an area of extreme delicacy–and you will receive further guidance on this from our judge. There are now restrictions on your movements and freedoms, and I regret them. You should, however, understand, that no connection exists–I repeat, no connection–between my clients and such restrictions. You will, and I rely on you, as do my clients, ignore the circumstances under which you are hearing this case.'

  He thought of them in London, in the capital under lockdown, the men of Delta, Golf and Kilo, doing what he should have been doing. Sitting in court eighteen, he realized he did not care a damn whether Ozzie and Ollie Curtis went down, whether they had an arm long enough to reach from a gaol cell and hit Julian Wright, his Principal. He had short-changed himself…It had gone on too long, and he would grovel, whatever it took. He imagined the racks behind Daff's counter–emptied, the ammunition issued–and heard the Welsh lilt of the armourer: If you're in shit, get clear of it. If you're in a quagmire, crawl out of it. Banksy, don't let the bastards destroy you. Always believe it, something'll turn up. He seemed to hear the gallows humour around him, and rough camaraderie, and his isolation from his team ate at him…and he craved it. He stood up, bobbed his head at the judge.

  He walked out of court eighteen.

  He crossed the forecourt and strode towards the centre of a great expanse of grass. Ahead of him were the lake and the geese. The rain was in his face.

  He took his mobile from his pocket, and dialled.

  He didn't call him the Rear Echelon Mother Fucker, but said, 'I'm hoping, sir, that you've got a moment. It's Banksy, sir.'

  The reply was dismissive. 'Only a moment.'

  'What I wanted to say, sir, was…well…it's…' His voice died and he stumbled for words.

  'If you didn't know it, Banksy, I have better things to do than listen to your breathing.'

  'It's just that I've been thinking…what I should be…' Again he was caught out and could not find them.

  'Christ, Banksy, you sound like a teenager asking her mother if she can go on the pill. Don't you know things are quite busy back here? I've another phone going, do I pick it up?'

  'Thinking what I should be doing and where I should be.'

  'Think a bit harder about your orders: what, is looking after jurors–where, is Snaresbrook Crown Court. All right? Is there anything else?'

  He heard that second phone answered, and a second caller was asked if he could wait a minute, no longer. Banks let the hesitation go fly. 'I realize now, sir, that my attitude to colleagues was out of order. I am prepared, absolutely, to make a fulsome personal apology to the rest of Delta for my behaviour.'

  'Wouldn't that be nice? Quite touching.'

  Banks swallowed hard. 'I want back in. I need, sir, to belong again.'

  'Am I hearing you right?'

  'I want to come off this crap job and rejoin Delta. I will, sir, apologize with no strings. I admit that my behaviour to colleagues was unacceptable. Do I, sir have your support? Please, sir.' The rain mixed with the sweat on his forehead and the damp seemed to shrink the collar round his throat, and his jacket clung tightly to him. 'That's what I'm asking, sir, for a chance to get back to Delta. It's where I should be.'

  'You're a bag of laughs today, Banksy.'

  'I know that Delta's doing a proper job of work, and I reckon I should be with them. Sir, I've learned a lesson and will not speak again out of turn. I don't see that I can do, say, more…' A hand was over a phone, but he heard the muffled request for the second caller to continue waiting, and the quip: 'It's just a little administrative fuck-up to sort out, but I'm about there–give me thirty seconds.' Banks knew now what he was: an administrative fuck-up…and knew his value. He listened.

  'You want to come back in, want everything forgotten…I'm not enjoying this, Banksy. I have every man and woman capable of carrying a firearm out on the streets, and some who are so ropey and stale on their training I wouldn't want to be within a half-mile of them. They're all doing double shifts, sixteen hours a day, while you're joy-riding round the Home Counties in your jury bus. God knows how many of them are popping pills to stay awake. Why? Because this city is under threat, real threat. They are looking for a suicide-bomber–not possible, not probable but actual–and if they see him, and I pray to God they do, they'll slot him. They're the front line in the defence of London. Oh, wait a minute, good old Banksy–superior bastard but we'll forget that–wants to rejoin the team. But it's not as easy as that, Banksy, not any more. You see, the doubt exists as to whether you're just a square peg that won't slot down into the round hole, whether you're up to the standards demanded of the job. That's the feeling, and whining about apologies won't change it. Sorry and all that…My advice, go back to jury nursing and leave the real work to those who've the bottle to handle it. In the pleasantest possible way, Banksy, get fucking lost.'

  He switched off. His jacket, heavy and sodden, with the notebook in the pocket, slapped against his hip.

  He walked through the smokers on the building's outer steps–they skipped aside to let him pass–and flashed his card at Security. In his wake the corridor floor was sheened with the wet off his shoes and the mud. He went into court eighteen and took his old seat. He looked across the court at the brothers, at the barrister who was on wind-down, at his Principal.

  Wally leaned close. 'You all right?'

  'Ne
ver been better, ' Banks said.

  'Sure?'

  He heaved a sigh, and murmured, 'I did something I shouldn't have, and from it I learned some truths. Not to worry now, because I've unravelled that problem and it's behind me. I'm fine.'

  He was a traitor to two men, one in his mind and the other across the width of the court. He caught the eye, saw the wink directed at him, and stared back at the juror.

  'Did you see that?' Ozzie Curtis rasped the question to his brother. 'See what?'

  'God, you're so dumb–don't you see nothing?'

  'Seen nothing.'

  Ozzie Curtis's mouth was against his brother's ear. 'The bastard's doing eye contact, winks and all, with that 'tec in the gallery.'

  'Which one?'

  'The one that's come back like a drowned rat.'

  'How'd you know he's a 'tec, Ozzie?'

  'Because he has a shooter on his hip–haven't you seen it?'

  'Haven't.'

  'Well, start looking at the bastard. See him, he's all smug and comfortable, and the bastard thinks he's safe, with his shadow We're going down, Ollie, and -'

  'You reckon it, definite, we're going down?'

  '- and, I promise you, we're taking bodies with us,' Ozzie Curtis growled, savage and feral. His face twisted as his tongue rolled on the words. 'Plenty of bodies–Nat bloody Wilson's body, and the Nobbler's, and that bloody bastard's. He's going first, and that's my promise.'

  'Yes, Ozzie, if you say so.'

  'I say so.'

  Ozzie Curtis gazed over the shoulders of Nat bloody Wilson, past the robed back of the bloody barrister, to focus hard on the bloody bastard…but the eyes didn't meet his. He had that gaze, cold and threatening, that would empty a bloody bar in bloody Bermondsey when he used it, but the bastard never looked at him. Looked instead at the drowned rat in the public gallery. He vowed it then–didn't matter how much of what he had was taken by the Assets Recovery crowd–he would use his last penny to take that bastard, above all others, down with him…his last penny. What made his anger more acute, the bastard seemed so calm, and kept eye contact with his shadow.

  A wan smile was returned to him. He listened to the barrister and wondered how much longer the peroration could last, scratched hard in his beard and tried to think of Hannah. Tried, but not with success, and tried again.

  Jools did not have Vicky, close up and pressuring his hip and knees, to fall back on for thinking of. He'd been late into court, the back-marker as they'd filed into their seats with their escort pressed round them. Vicky had Corenza on one side of her and Fanny on the other–he didn't know whether purposely or by accident. As the last one in, he'd had the choice of sitting between Rob and Peter, or between Baz and Dwayne…Some damn choice. He had ended up with Baz and Dwayne.

  He missed the press of Vicky against him. A silent chuckle rumbled in his throat. Babs and his daughter, they were never there. The weekend and Hannah, Jools decided, was about building bricks: like they did in a nursery. Bricks were put together. Bottom of the pile was the protection officer, Mr Banks, the starting point. Hannah and his weekend would be built on the leverage he had on the armed detective, and confidences given. Big enough confidences. With such confidences having been turfed out at him, he couldn't see that a weekend liaison with Hannah would be too difficult to achieve…Jools felt good.

  The brothers' barrister was obliterated from his mind–and why his protection officer had been out in the rain for a half-hour, had had a soaking and looked so damn mournful, and useless–and he was between Hannah's thighs and she squeezed on him, and…He was there.

  The cottage lay empty abandoned. So clean. The beds were stripped of sheets and blankets, and had been loaded into black bin bags. Every surface was wiped down, had been scrubbed, and the smell of bleach, toxic and sweet, permeated each room. Carpets and rugs had been vacuum-cleaned three times, and the mess of dirt and hairs had been extracted and dumped in the bags with the bedding. Piping-hot water had been run from the kitchen and bathroom taps, and from the shower, to flush down the pipes leading to the cesspit. Gone from Oakdene Cottage were all traces of a 'family' gathering. Not just their fingerprints, but also the body hairs and body fluids that carried traces of the cell's individual deoxyribonucleic acids–the DNA samples that could have identified them. It had been done painstakingly and with rigour. Windows had been left open, not to allow rain to spatter inside the rooms but to let out the trapped air contaminated with explosives molecules. Quiet hung in the cottage, and its new-found cleanness.

  Across two fields, an upstairs window opened.

  On any morning, when it was not raining, the farmer's wife would have shaken her sheets from it, as her mother had.

  The window was opened because the old mullioned glass, set in leaded diamond shapes, distorted decent vision.

  The farmer's wife had at her eyes the binoculars most often used for following the flight of birds over their land.

  She called down, stentorian, 'Just my imagination, I'm sure, but it's not right at Oakdene. The car's gone, the lights are off, but the windows are all open. Am I being silly?'

  'Probably gone out for the day,' was the answering bellow. 'You fuss too much, love.'

  'Maybe–but there are too many of them for one car.' She frowned, then lifted the binoculars again. 'There's a fire burning by the Wilsons' barn–you know, the one past our Twenty-Five-Acre.'

  'Can't be, they're away. Aren't they on a cruise? Where is it, Madeira, Tenerife?'

  'Come and see for yourself.'

  She heard his grumble, then the tramp of his feet up the stairs. He stood beside her, took the binoculars from her.

  'Haven't they hay in the barn?'

  'I'll take a look at it,' he said. 'And I'll take a look at Oakdene as well–when I've had my lunch.'

  The screams were past, long gone.

  The prisoner whimpered without sound.

  'I don't like it when they're so quiet.'

  'Means we're not getting through to them.'

  They'd made a hole for a hook in the concrete of the ceiling. The hook was big, heavy and had been given to them by McDonald in their second year at Ardchiavaig, because he was no longer permitted by regulations to slaughter his own stock and then to hang carcasses. It was Xavier Boniface who'd recognized that the hook might–one day–be of use, and it had done service for them in County Armagh and in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Donald Clydesdale had packed it in the Bergen with the galvanized bucket, the truncheons, the wires and all the other kit they carried when they went to work. Their prisoner was bound at the wrists, the binding looped over the hook, and suspended high enough for his toes just to touch the floor, but not his heels or soles. They'd started–as they always did–by allowing the prisoner to view the kit, and they'd explained graphically how they used it. Then Boniface had asked the first question on their sheet of paper. Their gentleman's head had tossed back, the loose hood had ridden up, his mouth had been exposed and he'd spat into Clydesdale's face. Not a good start, Boniface had said. Not being sensible, Clydesdale had said. Had hit him with the truncheons–in the small of the back, in the kidneys, and had let him scream. Had had his trainers off, and belted him on the soft soles of his feet. It was good when he screamed because their experience was that a screaming man was close to breaking. Then he'd gone all quiet, which was not so good. They'd done the beating. He'd coughed up blood–they'd seen it in the sputum dribbling down under the hood's hem. Then they had returned to that first question, and had not yet been answered.

  'What about a brew-up first, before the bucket?'

  'Good shout, Donald, my mouth's proper dry…Mr Hegner, would you like a mug of tea?'

  They'd brought everything in the Bergen: the collapsible chair on which the American sat, a tiny camping stove that ran off a small gas canister; four plastic mugs and plates and, of course, the canvas bucket that was used most days for the grain they scattered for their fowls.

  Hegner nodded; would appreciate a mug of tea. The Am
erican had a miniature tape-recorder on his knee, what a company executive might use for dictation, and his thumb had hovered on the depress switch when the prisoner had screamed, ready to hear him. But his thumb was off the switch now, as if he sensed they were still far away from breaking their man. They were both hot from the efforts put into the beating, maybe showing their age, sweating more than they ever had in the stinking, fly-blown heat at the gaol in Aden. The camping stove was lit, water was poured from a plastic bottle into an old and dented mess-tin that was then laid on the ring.

  Clydesdale crouched beside the stove to watch the water rise and begin to bubble, then made ready the tea-bags, the mugs and the little carton of milk. Boniface stood behind the man and hit him some more in the kidneys but did not get a scream as a reward.

  Clydesdale said, 'Won't be long, Mr Hegner.'

  'Would that be answers to questions, my friend, or that cup of tea?' Boniface said, 'You're very droll, Mr Hegner…A sense of humour always helps with this work.'

  They didn't take a mug outside to Mr Naylor, thought he'd probably have his own Thermos in the car.

  'You got a moment, Banksy?'

  'I was just about to bring them through from their room and on to the coach. Can it keep?'

  'Don't think so, just a moment will be enough.'

  Banks turned, faced the inspector. There had been nothing in the voice behind him that offered warning. He was led away from the jury-room door out into the corridor and was manoeuvred so that his back was to the wall. The inspector closed on him and the smile was gone.

  'Just hear me out. I'm surprised that an officer of your experience is unaware that codes of honour, omertà, silence, are not strictly the preserve of the criminal class. You've been snitched on, Banksy, grassed up. I had a call this afternoon from your former guv'nor, who was anxious to put the knife in and twist it. To say that I'm disappointed in you is my personal understatement of the year. You may think that what we're doing is second-rate, beneath your bloody dignity. You may wish you were poncing about in London in a fat cat's detail. You may hope that you can be shot of us soonest. Well, Banksy, think and wish and hope again. You're staying with me…I understand from your man that, back where you came from, they don't reckon you're up for it, that you're short of the necessary dedication, haven't the bottle for it. So, get it into your head that you're not wanted. It may have escaped you, but ordinary people worry a damn sight more about coming face to face, which is terrifying, with organized-crime barons waving guns–they will use guns–than about the remote possibility of being alongside a kid with a rucksack on his back. Ordinary people, sometimes, have the guts to stand up and be counted. Like my witness. Like Mr Julian Wright in there. Especially like Mr Julian Wright. So, come down from the clouds, get fucking stuck in and walk alongside those people. Forget about your own bloody importance. Got me?'