The Walking Dead

  Now he could see the ferry clearly. Its decks were floodlit, its navigation lights flashed, its portholes and picture windows blazed. It came steadily on towards the harbour's marker buoys.

  Twisting, as he had often done in the night since the man had come to him and taken the video-cassette, Ajaq stared up the straight road at his back. He was able to see, from the bench, the brilliantly illuminated sign and the wash of light round it at the harbour's entrance. If the place was staked out, if they watched for him, he would have noted columns of men disgorged from vans. When the Americans came to raid a safe-house, half of a battalion was deployed. Each time he had turned to look, he had seen only a few cars and more long-distance lorries tugging trailers behind them…and they did not have his photograph, he knew it.

  The boat ploughed past the nearer buoy, where a red light showed. Then it turned on its own length and began to reverse towards a low light at the extreme end of a breakwater. He reached into his pocket, as he had many times, and felt reassurance as his fingers touched the slim shape of the ticket. He stretched on the bench, arched his back. It was nearly time, a few minutes more, for him to move.

  He felt regrets.

  Regret that he had not taken more time to toughen the mind of the Saudi boy, to prepare him better. In the country where he fought–and the boat would take him on the first step of his journey to return there–he had satisfied himself that a cuff on the shoulder and the murmur, always the same, of 'God waits for you, God loves you, God will give you virgins', the briefest of brush kisses on the cheeks was enough. And the Engineer, checking the wiring on a belt or to a switch on the dashboard, would have told the idiot that failure would mean torture by the Americans and worse torture from the collaborators, the Shi'a Iraqis. Should he have done more?

  Regret that he had not organized classes in the cottage for the cell. Not classes in indoctrination and Faith, but on resistance to interrogation, of the procedures to counter surveillance, of the making of explosive devices, of the chemicals to be mixed if commercial and military dynamite could not be obtained, of the selection of targets…but he had thought them imbeciles and not to be trusted, except the girl with the scar on her face and the smooth skin on her belly.

  And regret that he had not gone far to the north and found a man alive or dead, that he had not gone to the door of a small retirement house and confronted, with fury and violence, his father, or had gone to a cemetery and kicked down a gravestone, had not, on the step-or by the grave, spoken the name of his mother. It would never happen now, and that was the most wounding of the regrets.

  The hull of the boat rose over the breakwater, dwarfed it. When he was on board, when the coastline–and there would be sunshine on it–faded, he would be on a remote corner of a deck. He would not use the canteen self-service or sit in a public area. He would find a place where the wind blustered cold and where passengers did not come, sit alone there with his thoughts, and the regrets would be gone. It would be two hours after the sailing that the boy walked into the square, went towards the crowds waiting for the doors to be opened. He would be on the deck, with the boat's wake stretching out behind him and the dark line of land barely seen, when the boy died.

  The woman with her dog came off the shingle and sand, used steps that were close to him. She walked past him, then stopped, smiled. 'I think it's going to be a fine day,' she said. 'The sort of day it makes one glad to be alive.'

  And she walked away.

  Ajaq killed more minutes, and the light brightened the paving slabs of the esplanade, glimmered prettily on the sea's waves, and he felt the first traces of the sun's warmth.

  Pricks of light, and zebra lines of it, crept through the holes in the plywood over the windows and the gaps between the planks nailed across the door.

  She had not slept. She had held him.

  She did not want to move, to wake him.

  He had cried out in the night, twice. He had used the Arabic language that she could not understand. She did not know whether he called for God, or for his family, but it was not for her. Each time, to calm him, she had wrapped her arms tighter round him and had let her nakedness warm him.

  He was still now and his breathing was quiet. His head was against her, cradled in her arms. Faria did not know whether she would be cursed or praised. She had been told to give him love and had done so. He was at peace.

  She did not want him to wake, but could lie there no longer. She extricated herself.

  Ashamed of deceit, no glow of pride, she moved first the arm that was above her shoulder and round her neck. Then the arm that reached across the small of her back, and the hand over her hair. His eyes did not open. So slowly, she eased away from him. She rolled on to the floor, felt the bare boards and a protruding nail gouged her buttock. She went on to her hands and knees and crawled clear of him.

  He did not stir, slept on. He had not touched her scar–had never gazed at it. He had shown no sign that the scar–a motor accident in a cousin's van, on early-morning ice–frightened or disgusted him. Every other man she had known in the Dallow Road, and all those in the cottage, had stared so blatantly at it, as if it repelled them. He, in spite of the scar, had loved her. For that, she believed she owed him more than he owed her.

  Tears came to her eyes. She convulsed, wept. .. She was a whore, she betrayed him…The imam who had recruited her, twenty months ago, had said before she was sent away to sleep, 'Much may be asked of you. Only the most strong and dedicated are capable of doing what is asked of them. Are you?' She had sworn she was. Her strength and dedication was to sleep, body to body, him inside her, until she had given what was asked of her. She swallowed hard, and used her wrist fiercely against her face to wipe the tears. She had been, through one night, loved.

  Light, spots and lines, lay on his body.

  She dressed, then rooted in her bag. She lifted clear from it the black robe, the jilbab, that would cover her from neck to ankles, then searched for and found a deep grey scarf, the dupatta, that would mask her neck and hair and would be drawn across her face. But Faria did not yet dress in the jilbab and the dupatta, would not make them filthy.

  He slept and her movements threw glancing shadows on to his skin. He seemed to reach out for her, not find her, and his arm subsided, but he did not wake. In two hours his life would be over–finished, destroyed–and she thought it good that he slept. She slid on her shoes. What should she tell him at the last? What were the last words she would speak to him before she slipped away, left him? Awake, him holding her and her holding him, she had rehearsed what she would say…She took the new bucket and went to the door.

  Faria heaved open the loose plank. It groaned. She thought he must wake, but he did not.

  She crawled through the hole. The back of her T-shirt caught a wood splinter, and she wriggled to free herself.

  Looking around her, up at the windows of the houses on either side, out into the gardens beyond the broken fencing, Faria saw that she was not watched. She took the top from the rain butt, lowered the bucket into it, filled it and saw the swirling scum. She replaced the top, and went back into the dark and the damp of the room, through the hole and worked the bucket after her.

  He slept, but soon she would wake him–must.

  'Tell me about the way men walk, describe to me every inch of their faces.'

  'Yes, Joe–same as the last time you asked me.'

  The low sunlight made jewels on the wave caps, but Naylor sat beside Joe Hegner in the recesses of the shelter hut where the sun did not penetrate. It was more than an hour since he had last rung his assistant director…Nothing to add that was new. Neither had he rung home…Nothing to say. They were in place as the American had demanded. A hundred yards west along the esplanade was the pier, and the tide must have reached its high point: the sea lapped the top of the pillars then fell back and tossed up weed. Set in the middle of the esplanade, level with the pier, was a foot-high brick square in which Parks and Gardens had planted shrubs and alo
ngside it were the boys, Boniface and Clydesdale, in their cat A further thousand yards, Naylor's approximation, down the esplanade was the entrance to the ferry-port, where the big boat now unloaded articulated lorries from its bow ramp. A man came towards them, pushing a pram in which a baby yelled.

  'He's fifty. A grandfather, maybe. Caucasian. It'll be the daughter's kid and howling.'

  'Thank you, Dickie. I'm not deaf as well.'

  A minute passed. He had no conversation, nor did it seem expected of him. Hegner sat beside him, hunched, alert, and he had the stick upright between his legs and leaned his chin on it. Another man came.

  'Little chap, could be forties, but he's all wrapped up. Has a fishing bag on his shoulder and–'

  'Thank you, Dickie.'

  Another minute slipped. No, Dickie Naylor would not have said he was near to panic, would have denied panic. But his gut was tightening and his hands clasped and unclasped, and he shifted his weight continually on the slats of the shelter seat, and his eyes ached from peering ahead. Not yet panic, but closing on it. Thoughts raced, jumbled, in his mind. A bomber would strike and he didn't know where–a cell member, a junior, under torture, had supposedly spoken of a ticket and where it would be used and at what time–a gamut of arrogance and egocentricity and the chase for a career's legacy had put him, Dickie bloody Naylor, into the palm of the American.

  'Two lads, around twenty. Big rucksacks. One is Caucasian and one is Afro-Caribbean. Look to be half pissed…students.'

  'Thank you, Dickie.'

  If Hegner was close to a similar state of panic, he showed none of it. Not even apprehension. He had started to hum a tune. One of those sickly sweet, sentimental songs that were played on the radio at this time, as Anne cooked his breakfast with that station on her radio. Irritation swarmed in Naylor, was kept with difficulty in check. The humming lilted on. He imagined consequences. Men and women of the Internal Investigation Branch, grim-faced and no understanding of the reality of pressures, would come out of the dark burrows, would examine the logs for details of the release of a prisoner, would confiscate mobile telephones and locate the source place of calls, would dig down into the earth, drag away concrete debris and uncover a body wrapped tight in plastic, would check the tasking of an RAF helicopter and…God, it was a bloody nightmare. He saw himself confronted in a police station's interview room by Branch officers–probably would know them, but no damn chance they'd acknowledge previous association. Heard the caution given. A bloody nightmare like no other. The American had said that a red carpet would be unrolled for him. Naylor doubted it. He gazed away, as far as his eyes could focus, along the length of the esplanade. Didn't believe in red bloody carpets. Saw emptiness, no one coming. He stamped his feet, beat a tattoo with his shoes. He flinched as the first of the sun's strength slid into that corner of the shelter hut and the light bounced on Hegner's darkened spectacles. He shifted again and let the breath, his frustration, whistle in his teeth.

  The humming stopped. 'Calm yourself, Dickie. He'll come.'

  'There's no one coming.'

  'Think of the glass as half full. Just keep describing the faces and the walk.'

  'Time is cut fine, they'll be starting to board. Where you said, there's no man coming.'

  Naylor saw the wide smile, thought it was meant to belittle him. 'Your problem, Dickie, is that you let your worries get on top of you. Believe me, he will come, right here and right past us.'

  They were approaching the last turn-off from the motorway. Then, with their sirens and lights, they would have a clear run into Birmingham's city centre.

  'I mean, it's like Daff said when we were back there and drawing the gear…It's a pin in a damn haystack. He's God's definition of a great comforter.'

  'Maybe they should have closed up the whole damn place.'

  'Can't lock down an entire city. So the centre's closed and he, slimy little sod, goes somewhere else, where people are.'

  'Don't see how we can win.'

  Some talked quietly, some read their magazines but interjected. There was no bravado, no joshing and crack.

  'We have the photograph, and we have this daft bloody bird on the T-shirt. But he'll wear a baseball cap, and have something over the T-shirt, stands to reason, to hide the belt.'

  'Remember that briefing last year–I'm not trying to be funny–that business about the smile? The Israelis say they all seem to smile. They're smiling before they go off to screw those virgins.'

  'Can't shoot every Asian lad who's in the city centre and bloody smiling. Bloody ridiculous.'

  The Delta team were in the lead Transit and behind them were Golf and Kilo.

  'Got to be a head shot, double tap and hollow nose rounds. Only place where there isn't a spasm is the head. Chest, even straight through the heart, and his hand's on the button switch, and up the shebang goes.'

  'A head shot with a Glock at ten paces–it's a miracle. How you going to use the H&K, a crowded street and all that crap? He sees you aim, and you have to, and presses the tit, and it's curtains time.'

  'At ten paces, if you don't drop him, blow his effing head off–and his finger's on the switch, you go with him–but you don't get the women like he does.'

  'Best thing to hope for, pray for, he's not on my bit of pavement.'

  They would be on the streets, along with every gun from West Midlands and Mercia, Warwick, Greater Manchester and South Yorkshire, before the shops and offices opened. The big man of Delta, the nick on his earlobe well healed, tried with gallows humour to break the Transit's pessimistic mood. 'You got it all wrong, guys, you haven't figured it. What to do is get out a bloody great bullhorn and shout into it. What you shout is: "Anyone here with a rucksack or a big belt that's heavy, take your hands out of your pockets, and raise them over your head if you're brave and principled"…How's that?'

  'Don't mention that jammy bastard, just don't.'

  'Because he's history'

  The sirens and the lights took them fast through the traffic, and into the city's suburbs.

  The first of the management and shop staff were let in through the side door.

  There had been a bad Christmas and a dead New Year of trading. Few did not appreciate the importance of the sale as a way of jacking up the turnover of the brand-name stores at the centre.

  Lights flickered on, lit the shelves and counters, piers and interior window displays.

  The managers began to check the tags with old prices crossed out and new prices highlighted. The shop staff started to tidy the stock they had dumped in place after closing the previous evening.

  A commercial-radio DJ, from a local station, was booked to declare the sale open.

  Although it was more than an hour before the outer doors would be unlocked, a small knot of customers was already gathered on the steps that led up from the square, but the feeling, and the hope, of management and staff was that, by the magic hour, the steps would be packed tight and the queues would stretch away towards the town hall.

  'I'm feeling good,' the centre's chief executive told whoever had time to listen to him as he walked the aisles. 'Quite honestly, I don't reckon the start of the Third World War would keep them away'

  He had been to the bathroom, had used the shower and found a razor in the cupboard over the basin.

  He'd dressed. Always carried with him in the holdall a clean shirt in a plastic bag and a pair of clean socks. Had to rifle deep down among his gear for them. The shirt was crumpled from burial under the grenade canisters, the first-aid box and the ballistic blanket, but hadn't been ironed anyway after its wash at the launderette in the high street near his bedsit. Trousers on and belt buckled, he'd touched the holster with the pistol in it, as a man did to be certain he had his wallet or a handkerchief in his pocket, or his cigarettes and lighter…had knotted his tie. He'd felt decent, like he could face another day. Banks punched the settee cushions back to shape and folded the blanket he'd been given, made it neat.

  There was movement behind
the thin wall, and he heard their low voices beyond the thinner door.

  She came out, closed the door behind her. 'Morning, Mr Banks. Looks like a nice one. You sleep well?'

  'Thank you, yes. Can't remember when I slept better.'

  She was coy, rolled her eyes. 'We didn't disturb you?'

  'No, not at all. A big battle wouldn't have, slept great.'

  She wore only an old rugby shirt, faded red hoops on a faded blue background, a trophy, he assumed, and it stretched down to her upper thighs. Oh, yes, and flip-flops on her feet. It was too long for him to remember when he had last seen Mandy with that same satisfied, well-screwed look–and tired eyes that still held mischief, and the grin…There had not been another woman since his wife had gone.

  'I was just going to make a pot of tea.'

  'Thank you, I'd like that.'

  'And do some breakfast, the full works.'

  'Brilliant.'

  'And what's the rest of your day?'

  'Take him back where we came from.' He added, his voice dry but his expression impassive, 'Take him back after he's been to visit his sick parents…'

  'He's a lying bastard,' she said.

  '…then field the flak about escorting him away from the location for an overnight, put my feet up, then we're all off on a bus outing for the afternoon. It's an all right sort of day.'

  'Actually, he's a complete shit,' she said, matter-of-fact.

  She went to the bathroom. He sat on the settee and reached to take a magazine from a side-table. He started to read about a film star he'd not heard of, and the making of a film he'd never see. The toilet flushed. So bored, so unfulfilled, so wrecked. She went from the bathroom to the kitchen, and he doubted she regretted calling her bed-partner a shit. Turned more pages and started to scan a profile on a couple who had renovated a castle in west Wales, and were younger than him, and had spent a half-million on consultants and builders. So worthless, so inadequate. He heard the whistle of a kettle and the clink of crockery. Read about a seashore holiday let in Barbados, with guest chalets, that cost for a week's rental–without flights–what he was paid for seven months' work. Felt so bloody useless, washed up and a spare part that had been discarded. The mug was placed on the table beside him. Sausages had started to sizzle and hiss in the kitchen. Carelessly, he chucked the magazine on to the side-table and a little of the tea slopped from the mug on to its surface. He wiped it clean with his handkerchief.