The Walking Dead

  She felt no love; nothing of it remained.

  Together, they had stepped over the body where the knife was. A little trickle of blood seeped from under the chest, and from the mouth.

  'You should walk. I am behind you, but do not turn to find me Know that I am with you.'

  For a moment, with his free hand he held hers. Then Faria pushed into his shoulder, shoved him away. She thought, at that moment and as he seemed to skip to regain his footing, that his smile had gone.

  She followed him for three or four paces, no more, and saw him meander down the pavement…She was satisfied that he would not look back, would not search for her.

  Everything that was asked of her, she had done.

  She turned and started to walk away, back where she had come from. In front of the Tasty Fried Chicken and its steel shutters she did what she had forbidden to him, and stared after him. He went slowly, as if he walked asleep, and was near to a newsagent's and an alleyway with a rubbish bin, and beyond it he would cross the road, through the traffic, and join the queue at the base of the steps. She was not with him, was not close. She ran.

  She ran until she was round the corner, close to the town hail–saw the clock that showed two minutes to the hour–then she snatched breath and walked.

  It was done.

  She slipped into a cut-through lane. She was alone. She heaved off the jilbab and dumped it with the headscarf, shook loose her hair and went out of the far end of the lane.

  Faria, with a good stride, started for home. And she felt the emptiness, and the choke in her throat.

  'God, look.'

  'Can't, bloody traffic.'

  'It's that girl.'

  'What girl?'

  The farmer's wife swivelled in her seat to look behind, out through the Land Rover's back window. 'The girl we had.'

  'Had where?'

  'You can be damned thick, dear. The girl we had in the cottage.'

  'I'm not stopping or we'll be shunted.'

  'Gone now anyway. You know what, she–'

  'What?'

  'Don't interrupt me, dear. She was crying her eyes out.'

  'I haven't any idea where we'll get to park.'

  'Listen, dear, she was sobbing, like her world had ended. Well, I think it was her. No, she was so composed, couldn't have been. It was like her.'

  He saw the loop of the wire.

  David Banks had seen the drunk veer against the couple, then smack at them with a stick, lurch into them, then collapse, and he had seen him ignored on the pavement. The couple had parted, the woman had scuttled away and the young man had walked on towards him…and the crowds heaved against the line of security men who were across the top of the steps.

  Thoughts raced in the mind of Banks. It was a bright day, and sweat glistened on the skin of the young man's face, made a sheen there. There had been a smile, vacuous, where the sweat now dribbled–but not any longer. The smile had gone, was replaced by the tremble of lips, his eyes scattering glances ahead of him. His movement was slow. With each step, a loop of flex–three inches or so–bounced below the hem of the leather jacket. He saw a thin face, pinched at the cheeks, and a neck without flesh. One hand was deep in a pocket, but the other hung limply at his side. The legs, where the flex showed, were narrow and insubstantial, and the trainers were small…Yet the body was so large, as if it had been built with a weightlifter's pills, like layers of sweaters were under the jacket. The rest of the body did not match the size and bulk of the chest. And there was the loop of wire.

  Banks remembered a zephyr of sneering laughter in a briefing room, the day before the American president's arrival on his last visit to the UK capital. A photograph pumped up on to a screen by the boss of the Rear Echelon Mother Fucker. A Secret Service guard, his arms thrown aside, gripping a machine pistol that was aimed at the heavens, waistcoat buttons bulging under strain, mouth open, as his president was collapsing, shot, on the pavement, and the caption across the screen's base was the guard's incredulous shout: Christ, it's actually happening. Yes it was, Christ, actually happening.

  Clothes weren't right, were too full and too cumbersome for the upper body, too heavy in that morning's sunshine, and there was the loop of wire.

  Remembered the cold on the neck, and the hackles up in the Alley where they practised. Saw the window and the cardboard figure in it. It spun and might show him the gun or a child in arms Remembered the age-long inquest after a Brazilian was shot dead in a train carriage: a guy working for a better life, not a terrorist bomber…Remembered an officer who had faced a charge of murder for killing when there was no cause to kill…Remembered a marksman who had fired with justification, and was now a stressed-out shell. The memories careered in his mind.

  There was a target behind him, a moving, flowing mass, an ants' nest of activity on the steps and in the square. There was a young man with sweat on his face, a body that was not to scale, and a loop of wire that was too thick for a personal stereo's cables.

  Knew it, and could not escape from it–it was actually happening.

  He looked into the face of the stranger, the young man. Saw it as a sniper would have. Saw the shake of the chin and the fear in the eyes. Made a judgement, as a sniper had. Passed the sentence, condemned. He smelt, for the first time, the perfume–what a teenage girl would have worn–and the sentence was confirmed, no appeal.

  Banks wondered, then, if the young man struggled to be brave–tried to summon up the principles that had sent him–but was now frightened, his brain fogged…He reverted to his training long hours in long years of it, because it was actually happening. The young man was coming level with the alleyway, crabbing sideways to avoid the rubbish bin on wheels. Banks's hand flicked against his jacket, and the weight of a notebook, loose coins and pebbles flapped it back. The hand went, one movement, to the butt of the Glock, and as it was snatched out a finger slid the safety.

  The weapon came up, and his feet splayed out.

  The young man had stopped dead, and stared.

  Banks went to the shooting posture, Isosceles stance. Fast enough? Could not be. Aimed for the head, forehead and temples, but the head seemed to shake as if it sought to remove the reality of the moment. Couldn't, in the time that was a second's fraction, lock the aim over the needle. Gasped in the breath. Saw, the pocket, where the hand was, writhe, and knew the button was pressed and nothing…His finger squeezed, and the target backed away into the alley, and bounced off the rubbish bin. Kept the squeeze on.

  *

  She changed down, then stamped on the brake.

  The damn thing did it again. Had had to brake or would have hit the van in front. Like two shots fired, the damn car that Avril Harris had bought seemed to explode with noise. It rang in her ears. She blushed, would have gone scarlet, and a man in a car beside her–in an outer lane–leaned clear of his window, grimaced, grinned and called to her, 'You want to have that seen to, Miss. It'll be the crankshaft and timing belt that need adjusting and–'

  'Thank you. I know what the sodding thing needs.'

  The van in front had pulled forward and she drove on after it, past the square and the great swaying crowd. She heard the town hall's clock strike, and saw the big doors at the top of the steps open, the surge that engulfed the security men.

  He dropped the Glock back into the pancake holster, pushed it down so that it was secured. His arms quivered from the recoil of the firing, and cordite stench was in his nose.

  His target had been thrown back. Could not see the head or chest because they were lodged behind the rubbish bin, but the frail-built legs and feet–and the loop of wire–were visible to Banks. He felt no emotion, did not know whether he should. He looked behind him, expected to see a crowd gathering in a half-moon, but people walked on the pavement, a pensioner couple, a family, youths with their hoods up, and all hurried towards the steps to the shopping centre, and the traffic cruised by.

  He went into the alleyway. The rubbish bin stank of old refuse. He though
t it as good a place to die as a forward trench where rats roamed. He looked down, through the shadow light, into the face. Yes, two good shots. Yes, the best a double tap could do. The holes, wide enough for a pencil to be inserted into–or a cheap ballpoint-pen tip–were an inch or so apart and their median point was the centre of the forehead, half-way between the top of the bridge of the nose and the lowest curls of the young man's hair. They oozed blood. He didn't need to, but Banks crouched, felt for a pulse and found none.

  Should not have done, but he lifted carefully the hand from the pocket, found a fist round a lamp switch, and knew the last intention of his target. He unbuttoned the jacket–the training work was done, the double tap, and he was separated from it. He knelt. He revealed the waistcoat, the careful stitching, the line of the sticks, and the pouches where nails, screws and ball-bearings were…and he saw where the taped binding had come loose, and wondered how and by whom it had been torn free. There was more tape at the end of the flex wire, and he understood why the device had not fired, why the switch had not linked with the batteries and the detonators. Banks had no training for it, but it seemed as simple to him as when he was at home at his mother's and she requested some small repair to an electrical device. Methodically, he made it safe. He unwound more tape and broke the connection between the batteries and the explosives. He stood, and behind him the entrance to the alleyway was empty and he was not watched.

  On his mobile, he dialled the number of his REMF, heard it ring, heard it answered.

  He said quietly, but composed, 'This is Yankee 4971, Delta 12, two shots discharged and one X-ray down. One TED made safe…' He gave his location, heard the babble of questions thrown at him and answered none. Banks finished, 'Over, out,' and rang off. He was

  / 'Yankee', code for 'a good guy', and did not feel it. The face now hidden from his view was that of an 'X-ray', who was in Delta speak 'a bad guy'–but it had been his promise that he did not make judgements. He imagined the chaos pursuing the news he had laconically telephoned in, that a suicide-bomber was dead and an improvised explosive device had been disarmed.

  He went back into the alleyway a last time, and dragged the body deeper into the shadows. Then he pushed the rubbish bin, moved it so that the entry was better blocked and the corpse better hidden.

  Banks stood beside it, his feet close to the waistcoat. Soft words spoken, those of a psalm. He stepped back, was on the pavement again.

  His Principal said, behind him, 'God, wondered where the hell you were. Pretty little bit of totty in there, makes a good start to the day. Then they had to go out the back and bring in more papers Then the cash machine jammed. Breakfast'll be screwed. Time to leg it.'

  'Yes, let's get clear of this bloody place.'

  They went fast. Had to go out into the road because paramedics, on the pavement, were lifting on to a stretcher the man he'd thought to be a drunk, and he saw the bright blood smear on the pavement dirt…and Banks reflected, hurrying, that nothing was what it seemed to be.

  Afterwards, it was a time for tangles to be unravelled, and loose ends tied, and for the lives of the living to be regained and the dead to be forgotten.

  'The chief constable up there is a very good man, sound–but he's short of a knighthood. I think such a deserved award is in order, if he's cooperative.'

  The assistant director sat in the comfortable chair of his director general's wide office, sipped coffee, and nodded agreement.

  'You see, Tris, there's no call to trumpet this affair. By the skin of our teeth, we've avoided a catastrophe that could have brought the roof down on us, on all of us in the Service, but that's past now. What concerns me most acutely is that delicate knife edge on which racial relations exist in these days. Take that town, Luton. Ethnic prejudices bubble barely beneath the surface on a daily basis. This is the sort of business, if shouted from the rooftops, that could fracture what little harmony exists, excite the bigots and therefore drive that Muslim minority–most of whose young people are utterly decent and totally law-abiding citizens–into the welcoming arms of the fanatics and the same goes for a score of other communities the length and breadth of the land. I'll work at full stretch, and demand the same of the whole Service, to keep matters quiet, as quiet as the grave.'

  'Very wise, if I might say so…Dickie Naylor's at home, getting some sleep, but he'll be taking that American to the airport later. What he did fits well with your ideas.'

  'I don't think it appropriate for me to speak personally with him…I think we can just leave him to get on with, and enjoy, the start of his retirement.'

  'The officer who fired the shots–reacted so fast that this murderous Saudi did not have the chance to detonate himself–is, I am told, a steady fellow and not one to make waves.'

  'A first-class man, Tris, and I hope with a bright future. If those dunderheads at Great Victoria Street have a modicum of sense, he'll be tracked for fast promotion. He's saved us from acute embarrassment.'

  'I'll pass the word, with discretion–nothing happened.'

  'Excellent, and come and have a little wet with me tonight, a sherry or three. There's cause for quiet celebration. Oh, the Reakes woman, she won't be silly, will she?'

  'A level-headed girl.'

  'Thank you, Tris. We were so near to being trampled and broken reeds…A most satisfactory beginning to a day when nothing happened–make sure you come and see me at the end of it.'

  A purser said to a steward, 'There's a blind gentleman in business class, American, third row back and by the port-side window. Looks pretty helpless, keep an eye out for him.'

  'Sad, must blight a life being so dependent. My imagination, or are his glasses stuck together with tape? Probably walked into a door. Of course, I will.'

  A detective from Special Branch, briefed and regarded as reliable, had been admitted to a terraced home in an East Midlands city.

  He sat in a small living room opposite a mother and daughter, and there was a framed photograph of a son, a brother, behind them. He said, with practised sympathy, 'The problem was that Ramzi formed associations with dangerous people. We released him and sent him home and know that he reached very near to here. The rest is surmise…We believe he made contact with those people. They may have concluded that we had turned him after his arrest, then freed him so that he could inform on them. It's not true, but they may have thought it. There are, now, two possibilities: they may have murdered him, or he may have fled beyond their reach. We will be, you have my promise, working day and night to ascertain which, and I most strongly advise you to leave these matters in our capable hands. If he is still living, your own enquiries could jeopardize his safety…I think you understand, and we'll hope for the best.'

  'Oswald Curtis, for this heinous and disgusting crime, you will serve twenty-two years' imprisonment. Oliver Curtis, a younger brother and undoubtedly under the influence of your elder sibling, you will serve eighteen years' imprisonment. Take them down.'

  Mr Justice Wilbur Herbert, well satisfied with the trial's outcome and with the quality of his address, watched them escorted from court eighteen, their faces flushed in impotence and anger. He did not know of the chain of events begun when the brothers had employed Benny Edwards, the Nobbler–and the links of that chain that had put, with inevitability, a Protection Officer on to a pavement outside a newsagent's that fronted on to a town square.

  He congratulated all of the jury on their courage, but his eye was on the bearded man who wore sandals, the school teacher.

  'All rise,' his clerk shouted.

  The golf team's secretary was first back at the bar, the churchyard's mud on his polished shoes, and the darts team's treasurer was at his shoulder. He ordered for them and waited for the drinks, doubles of Scotch, to be given him.

  'That's something I'll never forget,' the secretary said. 'I mean, all those Americans there, Rangers and Green Berets, and that unit pennant on old GG's coffin, and that big sergeant singing the "Battle Hymn" over the grave. Don't mind adm
itting it, I was crying fit to bust.'

  The empty stool was beside them.

  'Sort of humbling,' the treasurer said. 'How wrong can you get? Thought he was just a sad old beggar who lived with his fantasies, and it was all real and we took the piss. You just never know a man, do you? God, we'll miss Gorgeous George…'

  They raised their glasses and toasted the vacant stool.

  Longer afterwards, the tangles were tidied and the ends knotted.

  From behind a desk, Mary Reakes worked with driven energy for the cathedral's International Centre for Reconciliation.

  Other ladies with whom she shared office space in the building beside the new cathedral had considered, lightly, opening a sweepstake–with a prize of a tin of chocolates–to be won by the first who saw the incomer smile. They did not know where she had come from, or why–each day her face was set with an undisguised chill–and her cubicle had no decoration except old and new postcards from the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. She did not share.

  The head teacher of a secondary school said to her deputy, 'I think Julian's settled in well. Don't understand him. Can't imagine why a man with his qualifications wants to make his life here, the back end of Adelaide–must have been something of an earthquake that dropped him down on us.'

  'And you don't get anything of explanation from him, or from his partner.'

  'She's nice. Vicky's a bit scatterbrain, but the heart's there–she's doing good things in year five's craft class. I hope they stay.'

  'I think they will. Most of the new migrants who've had–what did you call it, an earthquake?–some damn great upheaval, they don't have anywhere further to run. Mr Wright and his lady are here to stay.'