The Walking Dead

  The card was in the privacy of her bedroom, hooked under the frame of her dressing-table mirror. All his cards were there -. from his three-times-a-year visits to Baghdad–and they made a ring round the mirror, and all showed the same view of the Tigris river. He was the only man that Mary Reakes, troubled and confused, would have thought of coming to speak with. She had left Thames House in midafternoon, having told her assistant that she could be reached on her mobile, had taken the train to Coventry and a taxi to bring her to the cathedral, had seen him waiting for her in the ruins where the chancel had been. She was a rising star in the ranks of the Security Service; he was an unknown junior priest in the cathedral's International Centre for Reconciliation. She had little belief; he lived by faith. She worked in a protected building in a supposed safe city; he travelled to Baghdad to support children's charities and a beleaguered church. She believed in the crushing of enemies; he strove to bring together adversaries in dialogue. Mary admired him, and Simon thought her beyond reach.

  'Can't talk in a building–sorry and all that,' she said.

  'Then we'll stand out here–I think the rain's easing. Forecast's good for tomorrow…Is it the Cross of Nails you need to touch?'

  'I'll touch anything that gives me guidance.'

  Mary Reakes told her friend of a suspicion. They stood, close to each other, inside the old lowering walls of the cathedral church of St Michael, which were retained as a reminder of the barbarity of war. On the night of 14 November 1940, fire bombs had rained on the city and a centuries-old building had been gutted. She told him of a plot identified, of a suicide-bomber loose on the streets, of a facilitator who had come from Iraq, of a prisoner who had been taken and brought south. A new cathedral, away to her left, had been built and dedicated to Forgiveness and Reconciliation, but she saw only the ruined walls and their stunted outline against the dusk. She told him of the release of the prisoner, of an argument with an assistant director, of the disappearance of her superior in the final and critical hours of the countdown, and of a blind American. In the days after the raid's destruction, a clergyman who was picking among the debris had found three long nails from the roofing beams and bound them together with wire to make a cross. She told him it was her belief that the prisoner was now abused, under torture…What should her posture be?

  'You are, Mary at the vitals of morality.'

  'I don't know what to do.'

  'You can be a whistleblower, or you can turn your cheek.'

  'I am comfortable on the upper ground, not in the gutter.'

  'Does it matter what is at stake?'

  She told him of the morning at Thames House, the start of a July day, the sun's warmth on the streets, as the news had come in torrent blurts of four bombs targeting the capital's commuters. They started to walk, pacing on the sheen of the flagstones. She told him that in every office open area, as they rooted in their files and flashed them up on screens, television sets showed the images of the dead and injured, and some had wept at what they saw.

  He wore a cassock of oatmeal brown and it swung like a frock as he moved. The rain glimmered on her suit's shoulders and in her hair, and her heels echoed beside him. She told him of that evening, and all through that week, of the numbing sense of failure that strangled life from her workplace.

  'The motto of our Service is "Defender of the Kingdom". Our sole job now, for three thousand of us–and all the police agencies–is to defend our kingdom against a new atrocity. Simon, does that justify torture?'

  He grinned. 'You know the answer for yourself.'

  'I have to be given confirmation of it–I have to know I'm not walking alone.'

  'But you will, Mary you will walk alone. You will be shunned and ostracized. The career–so important to you–will wither. Brickbats and insults will be your reward. Or you can turn away and empty your mind of what you know.'

  'When you were in Baghdad…'

  'Morality is not a focus group–and I don't mean to mock you. The vision of morality is with the individual. Is torture ever, justified? In Baghdad, daily, there are atrocities of indescribable evil, and .many say that such evil should be confronted by measures that are extreme to the point of repugnance. If I go to the airport, where prisoners are screened, or to the Abu Ghraib gaol, and call for respect to be shown those who manufacture the bombs and plan their targeting, and talk of religion and the dignity of mankind, I will be shown the gate–probably pitched out of it on to my face. I see the problem from a different perspective. I look at the witness. If the witness keeps silent then he, or she, demeans himself, herself. That man, or woman, must live with the decision. I doubt, Mary, because you are my valued friend, that you could cross to the other side of the street, avert your eyes, erase what you have known and maintain your pride. But the sustenance of your pride will come at a price, a heavy one. You know that.'

  She slipped her arm into his. Their steps had slowed and the darkness grew round them. Dulled lights lit the broken walls.

  He told her of a man, implicated in the bomb plot to assassinate Hitler, called Pastor Bonhoeffer, who had been hanged in the Flossenburg concentration camp a month before the final ceasefire of the Second World War. He told her of what the man had written, in his condemned cell, and apologized for his paraphrase. 'When they took the trade unionists, I did not protest because I was not a trade unionist. When they took the Communists, I did not protest because I was not a Communist. When they took the Jews, I did not protest because I was not a Jew. When they took me, no one protested because no one was left.' He lifted her hand from his arm and kissed it. She lifted her head, reached up, and kissed his cheek.

  She saw only shadows. 'I have to get back.' She turned away, walked quickly towards the exit arch, away from the place where nails had been fashioned into a cross.

  He called after her, 'I'd like to say that I'm here, Mary, always. Not true. I return to Baghdad in a week, will be there maybe three months. I urge you, pay the price, don't cross the street–don't look the other way. Hold your pride.'

  'Look, I'm not picking a fight, but I'm entitled to an answer. Did you or did you not telephone the police?'

  It was the fourth time she had asked the question, and three times the farmer had denied his wife a reply. Last evening he had shrugged and pleaded tiredness. At breakfast he had changed the subject to the latest ministry questionnaire on harvest yields. At lunch he had told her she nagged, had bolted his food and gone back to his tractor. He picked at his dinner, ate, swallowed and answered. 'No.'

  'We agreed you were going to call the police.'

  'I changed my mind. It's allowed.'

  'So, there was a fire behind the Wilsons' barn. In the fire there were, scraps of burned sheet, with patterns the same as Oakdene's, and towels. Together we went to the cottage. We found it empty and all trace of our guests gone. The cottage was cleaner–I'm not ashamed to say it–than from any scrub I've given it, and every room, the bathroom and loo, the bedrooms, living room and kitchen, stinks of bleach. Is that not something that should be reported to the police?'

  'They paid for a month.'

  'Paid cash, don't forget, in advance.'

  'It was just bedding and towels.'

  She grimaced. 'Can be replaced.'

  'Which didn't go through the books, and wasn't paid into the bank,' he said.

  She looked away, out through the darkened window and towards the shadow silhouette of the roof of Oakdene Cottage. 'Questions asked.'

  'First thing Plod asks, "How did they pay? Before they thieved your sheets and vandalized your towels, did they pay by cheque? Cash in hand?" Maybe Plod wants to get his hands on the banknotes and run them through for tests, I don't know. Questions with difficult answers.'

  'Best left alone?'

  'Best left where the Revenue doesn't know. Not as though the bedding was new. Can of worms if I phone the police, that's my opinion.'

  She said, 'I've done a nice plum crumble, your favourite.'

  'That's grand,
my love,' the farmer said. 'Can I take it that's the end of the matter?'

  'The end.' She cleared his plate and hers off the table. Time now was short. That evening there was a meeting of the parish council. He was chair and she was the minutes' taker. At the sink, she turned. 'Actually, they were very pleasant, the ones I met. Particularly the girl, so well-mannered–and the man, the older one, very handsome, a real charmer…'

  She heard it, then flicked the curtain and saw the car. Fury burned in Anne Naylor. She tried the number again. She heard his voice. In the metallic automated tone of the damn speaking clock, he told her that he was unable to take the call and urged that a message be left after the beep.

  'I'm telling you, Dickie, that your behaviour today–no contact, not a word–is absolutely unforgivable. Where are you? Still running round like it's a Scouts' jamboree and you've to be there till the last tent's been taken down, the last campfire put out? I suppose you think the people at that damn place will admire you for working right up to the eleventh hour of the eleventh day–they won't. I just thank God that Daddy's not still with us and a witness to your pathetic behaviour. I promise you that tonight–and it won't be in a quiet corner–I'll bend your ear and not care who hears me. For Heaven's sake, what do you think you've achieved by this pitiful display of childish dedication? By Monday morning they'll have forgotten you. Me, I'm not in the forgetting business. Damn you, answer your bloody phone.'

  She slammed down the receiver.

  Her coat for the evening was silk. Her late mother had worn it at her father's farewell party, when the Service had been based at Leconfield House. A little dated, but elegant. In front of the mirror, she touched her hair–dabbed her fingers on it…and she remembered. Her mother had said, in the minutes before they had walked into the governor's formal salon, at the Aden residence, 'You don't have to do it, my dear. Pregnancy out of wedlock isn't the end of the world. Daddy and I will stand beside you…It's not as though he's a wonderful catch. I'm sure you can do better…All right, all right. Just promise me you won't snivel…And promise me you won't regret it.' God, that evening she regretted marrying Dickie Naylor. She closed the door behind her, double-locked it and hastened down the path.

  The chauffeur held open the rear door for her. He looked puzzled. 'Just you, Mrs Naylor? Not your husband as well?'

  'No, just me,' she said acidly. 'I'm meeting him there, but we'll be coming home together.'

  'I suppose he's working,' the chauffeur said. 'Funny that. Most of those I take for their last party wish they'd quit a year ago.'

  'I expect he'll get used to, retirement, growing tomatoes in a new greenhouse.'

  The chauffeur closed the door gently behind her, and drove off. God–see if she didn't–she'd bend his ear, then burn the bloody thing to a crisp.

  'Give him more.'

  'You sure, Mr Hegner?'

  'It's what I said.'

  'Never gone up that high before, Mr Hegner.'

  Joe Hegner sat in his chair and asked the question in a clear voice, as if it didn't matter to him, like he was the schoolmarm talking to infants back near Big Porcupine Creek. 'The Engineer, my friend, will he be journeying with him?'

  The prisoner hung from the hook, and his body had the look of an animal carcass that his grandfather had slaughtered and left to bleed. He could not see it, but was able to imagine it…The trousers were down to the ankles, crumpled and lodged there, along with the fouled underpants; The wires' clips were dug into the folds of the prisoner's lower stomach, near to the testicles but not on them. The bare feet swivelled. He expected the prisoner, when the question was put, to stiffen and writhe, try to summon resistance, but his body turned slowly half-way to the right and then half-way to the left–and Hegner knew it because of the creak of the weight on the hook. He strained to hear an answer, but there was nothing.

  'Do it, guys.'

  There was the gasp and the grunt, then more silence.

  'Do it again, give him more.'

  He heard the scream, shrill inside the walls and under the ceiling, and the strain on the hook whined.

  'Every man has a breakpoint, eventually reaches the end of tolerance. Reckon we're near to it. What we have is good, but can get better. Hadn't thought he'd be so stubborn. He's stubborn, obstinate–but so am I. For me, it's all down to that moment of darkness. I'm in the mess hall, surrounded by good men. I'm queueing for food. I see this man–young, Arab, in big, bulky army fatigues, and he's a hand in a pouch pocket–standing by a table not twenty paces from me. I see him smile. I know then that he belongs to the Twentyman, have that sense of it. The shout's in my throat, and then the light's in my eyes. So bright, so vivid. I see men falling. I close my eyes–like closing them will protect them. And the blast of the scorched air knocks me down. I lie there, and there's men on top of me. I have pain so I know I'm alive and there's men shouting. I open my eyes. First, I think I can't see because of the men on me, but I push them off. My eyes are wide. That's the moment I realize why there's darkness. I blink, rub, scratch my damn face, where my eyes are, and there is only darkness. The Twentyman did it to me. I made the promise then, in that darkness and with other men's blood on me, the wetness of their guts, hearing them scream and moan, that I would get him or regard my life as a failure. What you've done, guys, is put me close to him and for that I am sincerely thankful. Do it again, up the juice.'

  'Don't think there's any point, Mr Hegner.'

  'There's not a pulse, Mr Hegner, no trace.'

  'Do you know, Mr Hegner, it's the first time Xavier and I have ever lost a prisoner?'

  'You're right there, Donald. He's gone, Mr Hegner.'

  Behind him, deep in the darkness, feet on cracked glass. He heard the wheeze, air expelled between tight-set teeth, then, 'God, that is a bloody disaster.'

  Hegner swung round sharply. 'Wrong, Dickie, wrong…We have a ticket, to and from and at what time. That is no disaster.'

  The hoarse voice was raised to a shout. 'My remit–if you've damn well forgotten it, which I have not is a bomb, a street, casualties spread across pavements. Where are we?'

  'Go with the flow, Dickie, and they'll love you.' Joe Hegner laughed. 'All your people, who think you're yesterday's man, they'll be tossing garlands at you. Dickie, enjoy the ride. You're stressing on one bomb but I'm going to show you the big picture.'

  She stood behind him. At her feet was the bucket, shiny and galvanized. In the bucket was the water she had taken from the rain butt, clouded with dirt. She used the soap to clean his body.

  Faria believed that, without her, he could not have washed himself–could not even have undressed. He stood naked and trembled. She had not before seen the bare skin of a man's buttocks and the flatness of a man's belly. A lone candle lit them. She had started at the nape of his neck, from there to the bristle of his beard on his cheeks and jaw, and then her hands had gone down, slipping and sliding across his shoulders, and into his armpits, and on towards the small of his back and the shallow width of his hips. She washed him in the cavity of his buttocks, and she stretched her arms round to reach his groin…then down his legs. The shivers convulsing the body were not from the cold. She felt the hairs on his legs, finer and softer than those at the base of his stomach. He did not wriggle to be clear of her hands. She knew all of his body, had washed its secret places and had sensed the beat of his heart.

  As the candle flickered, she left the bubbles on his skin, and bent down to pick up the cheap plastic razor. She lifted his right arm and ran the blade across the hair, then his left arm. She rinsed the razor in the bucket, and used her fingers to feel growth on his face, and he allowed it. Faria scraped the hair from his chest. She must have made a nick as blood stained her nails. But she dabbed the minute wound with water, from the bucket and staunched it. She thought of the blood that would pour from him when the waistcoat tore him apart. By touch, she shaved away the matted hair low on his stomach, and held him so that she would not again cut him. Felt him stiffen, held him w
ith gentleness, and made the skin smooth. She knelt and ran the razor's blade down his legs, on his thighs and shins.

  It was how it had to be done…how it was done in Palestine, and in Chechnya, and in Iraq. A man, or a woman, going to Paradise must be cleaned–purified, if he or she were to sit at God's table.

  She did not speak. What she had to say would keep till the morning, would be said when they walked.

  Faria could not ask it. As the video had been, were the washing and shaving a further reinforcing of the pinions on him? Was he tied to death?

  She dried him with an old T-shirt, wiped away the last of the soap and water, and her hands covered the softness of his skin. She squirted perfume over him, a popular brand that was advertised on television for girls to use.

  She had tightened the noose on him…and she helped him to dress again, and still he shivered, trembled, and she hoped she gave him strength–as she had been told to.

  The hours of the last night yawned in front of her, and of him.

  Bloody awful traffic. Friday-evening traffic, going north, nose to tail, and so damned slow.

  The car was from a pool left at the barracks for police use. David Banks drove but did not talk: his Principal would, soon enough. His Principal fidgeted in the seat beside him, seemed to wriggle for courage to spit out something. Banks was not minded to help him.

  Banks had the radio on. A news bulletin droned on, then a weather forecast. Good for the morning but not yet, and his wipers sluiced rain off the windscreen and the spray that was thrown up ahead. He had called the chief inspector, told Wally that he'd be off the camp for the next several hours, that Tango One–Julian Wright–had a domestic emergency with his parents and he'd egged it, that he was escorting Tango One from the secure location, that there was plenty of uniform to tuck the others up in their accommodation. He knew he'd told a lie, the domestic emergency with the parents of Tango One, and didn't care.