The Walking Dead

  He thought the ghosts watched as dirty work was done under the cloak of darkness. Would they have approved? Naylor had been told long ago, by a one-time squadron leader who had transferred in the peace years to the Service, that the crews were always briefed on the military importance of targets, never told of the civilians who would be in the cellars when the bombs fell and the firestorms were lit. Had they cared about the civilians, now called 'collateral damage'? Would they have said, 'I just obey orders,' as he had? Would the ghosts have said that the firestorms were justified in the interest of ultimate victory, as he had?

  'You happy with that, Xavier?'

  'Very happy, Donald.'

  'It's a nice job we've done.'

  'The best that was possible.'

  They came out of the pit, helping each other clear of it. He thought it meant about as much to them as digging down to a blocked sewer drain, and gulped again to hold back the bile. They left him. Naylor shivered. They tramped away, were lost to him. He thought of the American. When he had last seen him, the man who'd usurped Dickie Naylor was sitting in his chair, impassive like a sphinx, the body at his feet, wrapped in old, tossed-away plastic agricultural sacks. His phone rang.

  He saw the lit screen, saw the number that called him, put it back unanswered in his pocket.

  They brought the body, labouring under its weight, and tipped it into the pit. An animal would have been buried with greater dignity. They heaved sections of concrete on top, then refilled the pit with earth, relaid the turf and smacked it down with the spade, then carried away the rotting plywood on which the excess earth lay and scattered it among the growing pea plants.

  'Done nicely, Donald.'

  'Done a treat, Xavier.'

  'I think we'll make good time.'

  'No problem. Clear roads, and we'll have a decent run.'

  The two cars, on side-lights, drove down the runway at speed. He saw the memorial stone where the gate had once been, but he did not slow and swept past it. Naylor had no more business with ghosts and their place. On the main road, he snapped on his headlights and saw in his mirror those of the car behind him.

  'You all right, Joe?'

  'You bet I'm all right. And in the next several hours it'll get better, believe me.'

  On the dashboard was the lit clock. He knew where he should have been and would not be.

  As an assistant director, Tristram was host to the party.

  It was a wedding without a groom, a play without Denmark's prince.

  He thought her magnificent–she was the bride and Ophelia in one. More to the point, Anne Naylor was a trouper of the old school. He eased towards her. If her temper was foul, if she was bottling her anger, she guarded it closely. Canapés were being handed round on plates, and little sandwich triangles. It was a fine dress she wore, obviously new, purchased for the occasion, and if she was mad with fury she hid it successfully. What he would have expected from the daughter of a Cold War legend: the woman had pedigree. He thought they could make do with two glasses of wine each–maybe a splatter of a refill for the toast after his speech, but there would not be much drinking done. As soon as was proper, he would escort Anne Naylor to the Embankment entrance, with the envelope of vouchers in her handbag, see her into the car and wave her off…There was still work to be done that night.

  And quite a good turnout, considering the pressure of that work. An older group of Dickie Naylor's contemporaries, and the younger ones who sat in his office…Mary Reakes among them. Within ten minutes of Anne Naylor leaving, the car barely over Lambeth Bridge, the room would have emptied. Would he have walked those last miles, trudged through those last hours, up to the last chime of the damned clock? Would he hell. Damn right, he would not. But it was in his speech: Dickie Naylor was 'a shining example to all of dedication and commitment and duty, a safe pair of hands'. It was not in his speech that the man was, in Tristram's opinion, a bloody fool and a pliant one.

  He was at the wife's shoulder. His hand on her elbow, he eased her from the group. He led her to a quieter corner. 'Anne, you're putting up such a terrific show.'

  'I'll bloody well murder him.'

  'And taking it so well.'

  'He'll regret the day he was ever bloody born.'

  'It's a moment when he, dear Dickie, has more to contribute than any of us.'

  'Bullshit. I'll bloody swing for him.'

  'There's a heavy flap on, Anne. Dangerous times, you know, and all that. Right now, he's rather a crucial cog in the works–can't say where those wheels are turning. He'll be home in the morning.'

  'Likely to find the bloody locks changed.'

  'Then you can go out together, everything forgotten, and buy that greenhouse.'

  'Then barricade him into it.'

  'I knew you'd understand, Anne. Well done.'

  He slipped away. Tristram was now in hourly contact with Dickie Naylor and the motley elements he travelled with–the increments from the Inner Hebrides and the Riyadh agent. There were, of course, no written records of past conversations and he thought of Dickie as a kitchen rag hung out on a line at the mercy of the elements. Himself, no damn way would he have offered up so many hostages…Himself, he was near completion of an illustrious career, not one of mediocrity. He saw glasses being refilled, but not liberally, and moved to the side. He looked around, at the table from which the wine came, checked that the envelope was there, searched for a spoon with which to rap a glass and win attention…and saw Mary Reakes advance on him.

  She said, as crisp and cold as frozen snow, 'At a personal level, I want you to know I'm not happy with our handling of events. I'm asking, which is my privilege, for a one-on-one with the director general.'

  'It's not the time, Mary, and not the place for us to discuss your happiness.'

  'Just thought you should know of my intentions before you dig yourself deeper into this cesspit.'

  'Always better if we stay on the same song sheet…Because of the nature of things, the DG's in tomorrow morning–I'm sure he'll fit you and your conscience into his schedule. Thank you for taking me into your confidence. Please excuse me, I've a speech to make.'

  He lifted a spoon off the table and rapped the glass.

  She laid out the clothes he would wear, placed each item on the plastic bag that held the waistcoat.

  His eyes were on her, duller and without the brightness of the low candle's flame.

  Last on the pile was the white T-shirt with the spitting swan on the front, where he would see its anger and defiance.

  She sensed his weakness and knew what she must do.

  She bent, cupped a hand on the flame, blew once, sharply, on it.

  The flame wavered and was gone. She groped across the floor and crawled over the rumpled roll of the carpet, smelt it and gagged. Her fingers touched him. He flinched from her. It must be done or the weakness would overwhelm him.

  It was where Faria had never been before, and she thought neither had he.

  Her fingers were on his face, then caught at the back of his neck and she eased a knee over his legs. He did not struggle against her. She kissed him, his mouth against hers, his lips moist against hers. She pushed her tongue on to his teeth, forced his mouth wider. Her tongue licked the inside of him and she tasted the food she had brought back with the bucket. She wriggled tighter against him.

  If it were not done, in the morning he might turn, or freeze, or run. It was to strengthen him.

  Her hands came from his neck and slid down his body, so slight and frail, and across the bones that made the cage of his ribs, and came to his belt. She unfastened the belt, then the upper button of his trousers and drew down the zip. Her hands climbed again. She pulled the jersey off him and the shirt. She had to lift each arm because he did not help her. It was done so slowly, but the layers came off and then she could touch the expanse of the skin, and she sensed his heart pounding. She used her nails to make patterns on his now hairless chest–the same patterns that had been made on her skin by th
e man, and into the navel, as the man had done. She had said then: It is never the leaders who make the sacrifice. Had said in anger: He is the one with true courage. Her breath came faster, as the man had made it.

  She broke the patterns. Faria took his hands and guided them under her upper clothing to her breasts. She bared herself and led his hands to the fastening clips on her back. He did not know how to do it. There were girls, white girls, on the streets near to the Dallow Road, not aged fifteen, who knew how to undress for a few seconds of writhing, and boys from near to the Dallow Road, not yet at their fifteenth birthday, who could have stripped her and unfastened each clip and each stud within moments…and she was twenty-four and the boy, she thought, was past twenty…and neither of them knew how. So they learned.

  They learned. Her purpose in learning was that he would walk better in the morning–not stop, not cringe, not reject what was asked of him…They fumbled, the one as inexpert as the other.

  Clothing was taken off, dumped beside them. Her weight on her knees, her hips rose so that he could ease down her jeans, then her knickers. She took him in her hands, stroked him, felt the hardness grow, then pulled down his trousers. He was so hesitant, but so gentle. She guided him, placed him at the lips, then thrust down on to him. He gasped. He had his hands up now, on her small, shallow breasts, and they found the nipples and squeezed softly. He was deep in her and moved slowly under her. She felt the confidence, his and hers. She thought he moved slowly so as he might prolong the glory of it, make it last. She squirmed to tighten her muscles on him…It could not last for ever, not beyond the morning. He spoke words–little guttural cries–in a language she did hot understand. She panted louder, abandoned the shyness that had been drilled into her youth, gasped and yelled. He drove up into her, heaved her body UP, and she felt the strength, knew she had given it to him. At the end there was a shout. Faria could not have said if it was his or hers. Then a long sigh, hers and his.

  She held him close. She felt his hands locked round her back. His sweat was slick on her body, and hers on his.

  It played in Faria's mind. Was it merely a mechanism to give him strength? Was it the same, the equivalent, of making a speech that inspired, as the recruiter had to her? She did not know…She heard his breathing soften and calm. She felt, inside her, that he shrank. In the morning, as she had been told to, she would walk with him and lead him to the place of his death–she would not see it. She would have gone from his side as he took the last several paces, and would head for the Dallow Road, and her home. Long before she reached the side-street off that road, she would have heard the explosion, the silence, then the scream of sirens. She would open the front door, greet her father–and tell him nothing. She would start to prepare lunch for her parents–as if she had not been away for sixteen days. She would tell them nothing and they would ask nothing, and she would go upstairs, sit with her mother and concoct lying anecdotes of days spent on the computer course. She would ask dutifully if there was news of her brothers, in Islamabad, students of religious studies. From the kitchen, she would hear the television baying out the news of an atrocity, and she would have returned to her sleep…She did not know if, ever again, she would be woken. That day, and the next, and the next week and the next month, she would be back at the drudgery of caring for her parents and perhaps, one dawn, when she was in her bed and alone, she would hear the door cave in below her, and her room would be filled with masked, armed policemen, and rifles would be aimed at her, or. perhaps she would be left to sleep.

  She lay on him. His breathing was even and regular.

  She could not stop the coming of the morning when she would help him to dress. Would she be damned by God, or praised for giving strength to him? She shivered, but felt his warmth.

  The boy slept in her arms…and she wondered if the man thought of her and of where his hands had been, and if he would remember her.

  He sat on a bench with the stars for company, and the moon's light. A man had come to the bench an hour before, had sat with him for less than two minutes, had gone. The man had come to the bench, past the hour of midnight. Would have come on each of three previous evenings. There had been relief on his face that the rendezvous was successful. He had been asked if it had gone well–he had shrugged, replied that the morning would give the answer. He had thought the man was perplexed that he displayed no enthusiasm…He had given the man the video-cassette, had seen it pocketed, had been promised that it would be moved on at speed. The man had kissed his cheek and left him. Muhammad Ajaq had shown no enthusiasm because he felt none…His work was elsewhere, and those he had been with had slipped from his mind–were worthless.

  In front of him was the sea. He heard the rumble of the waves against the pillars of a pier, and beyond the quay was the harbour into which the ferry would sail. Ajaq dreamed because he felt himself free, already beyond reach. .

  Beside him, Naylor did not speak.

  They were on big roads, empty freeways, and Hegner sat easily.

  Near to the end–near enough for him to have rung far away Riyadh, to have roused Cindy from her bed, to have heard her voice, first drowsy, then alert, to have asked her to make the reservation for him to return the next evening. And she'd asked him, was it going well? 'Just fine,' he'd said, and had not cared that Naylor heard him. They went south. There was a phrase impregnated in his mind from childhood. It was his grandfather's, used in the smithy where the community's ironwork was repaired, and where the bellows heated a fire for the shoeing of horses. He'd been a kid then, still near to Big Porcupine Creek, and had not yet gone to the high school at Forsyth, and his grandfather had softened the iron of the shoes in the bright charcoal, and had used the phrase for a certain type of horse. A horse that was not for riding but for dragging a cart or a light harrow, that was not pretty and not loved, was a 'useful beast'. A 'useful beast' had a purpose, and was willing. The car took him at speed towards the Twentyman.

  It was his good fortune–and when he was back with Cindy he would tell her–to have met up with a 'useful beast'.

  It was better fortune than laying the woman in Naylor's office, good but not great…It was his best good fortune to have met up with a 'useful beast' and harnessed him.

  The farmer lay on his back and snored, and his wife had turned away from him. The clock in the hallway below, a fine piece handed down by his grandfather, struck the, quarter-hour after midnight.

  She allowed him to sleep because the evening's dispute was resolved. The stolen, burned bedding and towels would be replaced. Straight after breakfast he would do what he hated most and what she had coerced him into. They would take the Land Rover into town and go to the shopping centre; be there good and early, and would buy new sets at sale prices. Maybe she would beat him with the rod and make him try on new trousers.

  Odd, what had happened, and no answer she could put to it.

  The handler came off duty late.

  The clock on the wall showed half past midnight. His dog was the only one allowed access to the canteen, and it sat expectantly by his chair and begged titbits.

  A sergeant carried a tray to the table, sat, pulled a face. 'Reckon your Midge isn't the celebrity we thought.'

  'What you mean?'

  'Didn't you hear?'

  'I didn't hear nothing.'

  'Your joker–he walked.'

  'Can't have.'.

  'Did. The swabs off the joker's hands went to the forensics laboratory. First they came up positive…'

  'Of course they did. .. The dog was going bloody mad.'

  'Second load of tests was done–came up negative.'

  'That's not possible.'

  'Heard it from the Branch office. The joker had no traces of explosive on his hands or on his clothes, so he walked. Your dog had it wrong.'

  'What you telling me? You telling me my dog's no good? I won't have it. God, there's a year's training gone into Midge. The reaction didn't leave any room for it, not for a doubter. I can't credit it. That
dog's alpha sharp. I'm not selling Midge short. If some smart-arse is telling me I don't know my job, that my dog gets explosives wrong, then I'm saying that something pretty damn bloody funny's abroad.'

  'Maybe you're right, but I'm not expecting to hear what's funny.'

  He lay stretched out on the settee.

  He had been given a blanket, but Banks couldn't sleep.

  The sounds from behind a thin wall reverberated round him.

  He had been lied to but had not made a judgement. Nor did he make a judgement on the cries from beyond the wall or the squeak of the mattress. Served up to him on the same day: an untruth, a confession and a damned act of adultery–what the Delta guys called a bit of 'playing away', what his wife had done to him–but he thought of himself as too flawed to condemn…A man was shot in the chest, a man lay in the filth of a casualty clearing station, a man waited for the triage verdict, a man wrote in tiny halting script of the sniper who had shot him down: I cannot hate him…Perhaps he is a good man…I think of him as being as far from home as I am, a man's notebook diary, with one more page to be read. David Banks did not criticize his Principal, did not dare to.