A Line in the Sand (25 page)

shy, darkened love between them, but the bare thighs of the girl in the

car intruded and disturbed him. He could not shake from his mind

the

white skin of the girl and the outline of her breasts. Vahid Hossein tried, but he could not.

The bell rang three times.

Meryl said she would answer it. She said coldly that she didn't want to see him cowering in the shadow of the unit hallway again when the door was opened. The detectives had said they'd use three short

blasts

on the bell when they wanted entry to the house.

Blake was at the door and seemed surprised that she opened it. His face fell a little when he saw her. She thought he would be one of those creatures who expected only to deal with the man of the house.

Blake said, fumbling for the words, that there were more personnel down

from London, uniformed, armed and static, and that they needed to

look

over the house. She thought him supercilious. He did not ask

whether

it was convenient, but stood aside for them as they came out of the darkness. They shouldered past her, as if she did not exist, and

pushed the door shut behind them.

Frank stood in the living-room doorway. She heard the names they

gave

him, Paget and Rankin. She grimaced, a bitter little smile, because neither asked Frank if it suited him, just said that they needed to walk round the house, look it over. They went together, as if there was an umbilical cord between them.

They wore blue-black overalls and webbing belts, on which were

holsters

and weapons and what she thought were gas canisters, ammunition

pouches

and handcuffs. When they had been waiting for her to answer the bell, have been in the mud at the side of the road and the green,

they must

and their boots smeared it over her carpet. They seemed not to

160

notice.

They looked around the living room, at her furniture and her

ornaments,

as if they were all dross, and the glass cabinet where she put the china pieces she'd collected, and the pictures of the seashore,

prints,

by the local artist that Frank had bought. She strained to hear the murmur of their voices.

"Have to get it taped up, Joe."

"Too right, Dave, nothing worse than glass cabinets."

"Have to get the pictures down."

"What you think of where the television is?"

"Not happy, should be back against the wall, right back."

"Shouldn't Davies have done this?"

"Should have, didn't."

"Pillock - I don't like all the stuff on the fireplace."

"Quite right. Let's do the windows."

The tall one, Rankin, went to the standard lamp and switched it off.

She stood in the darkness and could sense the rising impatience of Frank beside her, could hear the sharp spurts of his breath. The

curtains were pulled back. A faint glow eased into the room from

the

street-lights on the opposite side of the green. She heard the

scrape

of their fingers on the glass and the window casing, then the noise as

the curtains were yanked without ceremony into place. Only then was the standard lamp switched on again.

"Thought they were supposed to have been laminated, Joe."

"They haven't got round to it the work order's in, be done by the end

of the week."

"Bloody marvelous."

161

"I don't like that window, Dave, not without the lamination."

"Don't tell me, I've got bloody eyes. What is it, a hundred metres, to

those houses? A sniper, piece of cake, or an RPG."

"What you say, Dave, piece of cake for a rocket launcher or a rifle.

God, this place needs sorting out. Come on... They did the hall,

the

dining room and the kitchen. Frank trailed behind them and she

followed. She didn't have to ask. Everything that was glass, china or

pottery, everything that was heavy and unattached, would shatter,

and fly, maim and wound. They said they needed to see

fracture

upstairs. She stiffened. Frank muttered that they should go

upstairs

as necessary, but they hadn't waited for his answer and were

if that w

already on their way up. There wasn't any more mud from Rankin's

boots

to dirty the carpet. They looked around her bedroom.

"Don't like the mirror, Dave."

It was the big mirror on her dressing-table.

"Tape it over."

She imagined the mirror, where she made up, where she worked the

brushes before they went out for an evening, with packers'

delicate

adhesive tape crossing it.

"Look at all that loose stuff."

On her dressing-table were the cream jars and the glass eau-de

toilette

bottles, the vase of dried flowers and the silver-backed hairbrushes.

"Have to get it boxed up, Joe."

She would have to rummage in a cardboard box on the floor for her

eye-liner and lipstick. She imagined everything that was precious to

her put away on the instructions of these men.

The pictures would have to come down, of course. The photograph

162

frames

would have to be put into the drawers, and she wondered if she would be

allowed to take out the photographs and stick them to the walls, if they would permit that. In the bathroom, at the back of the house, she

couldn't have said they lingered on anything that was hers. They

were

merely indifferent to each item that belonged and mattered to her.

if they had lingered on them because then the items might have

Better

seemed important. They went into the spare room and discussed what n to the pictures, the mirror and the ornaments there.

should happe

They

e landing outside the last door.

paused on th

It was as if they had

cked

ki

the fight out of her, and the resentment was flushed on Frank's

t neither of them protested. She could hear her boy's

cheeks, bu

ice,

vo

making the noise of a lorry. They didn't ask her to go first, or

The short one went in, the tall one behind him.

Frank.

ello, sunshine my word, aren't they brilliant?"

"H

ulage business."

"Great lorries, sunshine, proper little ha

ncle Joe..."

"Just call me U

, that's a real good one, the Seddon

and I'm your uncle Dave

kinson."

At

Seddy's good, Dave, but the Volvo's fantastic."

"The

t's a great fleet, sunshine.. . No, sorry, don't touch."

"I

your name? Stephen? Well, Stephen, you mustn't touch

"What's

what's

Uncle Dave's belt.

on

It's gas, it's handcuffs and it's the Glock..

.

ke

Li

what?.. . He did what? That must have been fun, sunshine. You

hear that, Joe?

yground

DS Davies chucking his Glock round the pla

at's nice to store away for when he gets all pompous. I expect

th

it's

me you were in bed, sunshine..."

ti

e door was closed softly. They had come, she thought,

Th

effortlessly,

her family's life and brought with them their gas, their

into

163

handcuffs

and their guns. And, in the morning, her home would be prepared for defence against a sniper's attack and against the devastation of a rocket launcher's explosion. When they had gone outside, into the back

garden, she went for the vacuum cleaner to remove the mud they'd left on her carpets, and before she started it up she heard Frank's voice.

ver do that again.

"Don't e

Don't dare ever treat me and my wife like

we're rubbish. We're human beings and deserve to be treated with

decency and respect. This is our home, so show a bit of sensitivity ome into it.

when you c

Don't look at me in that dumb, insolent way,

just don't. We live here. If that's not convenient, soft shit."

She didn't hear their reply.

When they'd finished in the garden and gone out through the front

door,

and it had been bolted and locked again, while she was in the living room with the vacuum cleaner, she heard Blake's voice.

"You shouldn't have done that, sir, bawled them out. They're at the end of a pretty long day. But don't worry, they won't take it

, they're used to principals being stressed up.

personally

But you

shouldn't have bawled them out, sir. One day you might depend on

them

to save your life, one day soon."

not a zoo. You don't come here to rubber-neck. It's a

"This is

working area you're causing disruption."

He'd been told but it had slipped in his mind. It could have been the

ime the detectives had confronted the duty doctor, but it

fourth t

was

more likely to have been the fifth.

"I will say when you can talk to my patient and it is the same answer ast time, and the time before that. No. My patient is

as the l

severely concussed, quite apart from the effect of the drugs

g the pain of a triple femur fracture. No."

alleviatin

They were at the end of the ward.

d

Beside the door to the partitione

cubicle, Geoff Markham hovered a pace behind the two Branch

es.

detectiv

ng and on the

The doctor was young, harassed, probably sleep-walki

164

ge

ed

of his temper.

"It is not my concern what my patient is alleged to have done, my is his health and welfare.

concern

I understand he has been neither

arged.

cautioned nor ch

So, he is in my care, and I decide if he is

to

be questioned. My answer.. . No."

on a hard chair, facing the

A policeman was sitting beside the bed

or, his hands on the snub weapon resting on his legs, his face

do

ed policeman sat outside the door,

impassive. The second uniform

adling his own gun, a wry smile flickering at his mouth.

cr

l you, it's bad enough for my patients to have guns paraded

"I tel

et the

around, but right now they are trying, unsuccessfully, to g

st

re

they need. They are not resting, as they should be, because this

ward

being treated by you like a high-street pavement.

is

Just get out,

go

ay.

aw

rkham's fingers were locked together, clasped tight, flexing

Geoff Ma

hard enough to hurt. He thought Littelbaum was somewhere behind him.

rican had said this was the big and lucky break, but it didn't

The Ame

seem as if they knew how to use it.

isten to me. You are interfering with the running of this

"Just l

rd.

wa

I will protest most strongly in the morning to the administrators

about

nce.

that interfere

If the condition of this patient, or any other

tient in the ward, were to deteriorate because of your refusal to

pa

t my personal business to see

accept my guidance, then I will make i

u

yo

broken. Get off my territory."

There was a dull blue sheen of light in the cubicle.

off Markham

Ge

ought, could have sworn to it, that he saw an eye glinting from

th

the

und of white pillows. The head of the patient, the face that

mo

Rainbow

ld had identified as Yusuf Khan, was half hidden by the left leg

Go

t.

raised in traction. The glint was momentary, but he'd seen i

165

e

Th

patient now seemed unmoving, unconscious. The detectives turned

away.

"He's fooling you."

Markham said,

"You're a doctor? Familiar with this case history, are you?"

ersisted, "He's alert, listening. He's feigning."

Markham p

n expert on concussion? You know about the effects of

"You're a

in-depressant drugs?"

pa

hat I am telling you-' "No. I do the telling on my ward, and I

"W

am

you to get out."

telling

Markham spat, "There could be blood on your

hands."

"I doubt it."

"A man could be murdered because of your refusal-' "Get out."

He had failed to exploit the break. The faces of the uniformed

en were expressionless, as though they didn't need to tell

policem

him

he'd made a right idiot of himself. Geoff Markham turned

that

angrily

ked up the central aisle of the ward towards the low light

and wal

at

the far end where the night sister sat at her table. The detectives were alongside and he could hear the soft pad of the doctor behind him.

He saw the American sitting on a visitor's chair, in deep shadow,

atient's locker. The patient was passing him a grape,

against a p

and

before he took it the American had his finger on his lips. Markham kept walking.

stion:

Beyond the ward's swing doors, there was a last snapped que

"How

long?"

The doctor said that it might be two days and it might be three, or it