A Line in the Sand (38 page)

I needed to see for myself."

ption brooked no argument.

The interru

"Are you a marksman? I don't think so. Are you expert at drawing defensive perimeter lines? I doubt it. There's nothing for you

here.

Don't sulk, Mr. Markham. You're a good driver always do what you do

well."

elbaum

Markham unlocked the car, held the door open for him. Litt

felt

aged, tired, cold.

, the

The tone of Markham's voice was resentful

teeth of a saw on a buried nail.

"So, back to London. I hope it's been a worthwhile exercise for you, Mr. Littelbaum -above and beyond lunch."

"It was worthwhile. Can we have the heater on full, please? He's there, Mr. Markham. I saw where he is. It was like I could smell him."

251

The bird ate the minced meat, stabbing down with its beak in quick, urgent strokes.

Vahid Hossein had led her to the small clearing among the bramble

and

thorn, at the edge of the marsh, where the grass was short from the rabbits' feeding. Farida Yasmin did not know whether he had brought her there out of a sense of boastfulness, or whether he wished to

share

with her.

His fingers were long, gentle and sensitive. She was behind him,

within reach of him. He had sat her down, told her not to move and whistled into the late-afternoon light. The bird had come from close by, had materialized over the dead reed fronds, with a laboured

flight.

Now he stroked its head feathers with his fingers, and he used her handkerchief to clean the wound. The bird permitted it. She hoped it

was not a boast but the demonstration of his wish to share with her a

precious.

moment so

His fingers moved on the feathers, soothing the

bird, and pried into the wound, and she saw the peace on his face.

It was as if, that day, she had slipped from the mind-set of Farida Yasmin Jones. The identity of her Faith was discarded, as a snake's skin was shed. That day she had she knew it and it did not trouble her

d to the world of Gladys Eva Jones.

reverte

en a car.

She had stol

from her comprehensive school knew how to steal a car.

Any kid

It

was

the talk in the canteen at lunch, and in the grounds in midmorning on the bus going home.

break, and

She had listened in disgust, years

before, as boys, girls, had talked through the theory of how to do it,

what she had heard. She was a thief, had

and she had remembered

oken

br

the rule of the Faith as it had been taught her, and she did not care.

king area beside the small railway station where the London

In the par

commuters left their cars for the day, she had felt a raw excitement been so easy.

and it had

The hairpin into the lock of the blue Fiat

the kids always said that the small Fiat was the

127 because all

mplest to take and the stripping of the covering, the marrying up

si

252

of

the ignition wires. She was a thief; a few seconds' work with a

hairpin and she was no longer the virtuous Farida Yasmin who could recite the Pillars of the Faith, pages of the Koran, and had once

been

the favoured pupil of Sheik Amir Muhammad. She had not felt shame, only excitement.

She watched him, watched his fingers on the bird, watched the rifle lying half out of the sausage bag on the far side of him, and the

excitement was a toxin in her bloodstream. It was now a part of her.

She recognized that it had nothing to do with the Islamic faith to which she had dutifully converted.

For all her teenage and adult life, Gladys Eva Jones had craved to be

noticed, to be valued. He had listened thoughtfully when she'd told him that the police had been to her workplace, and had nodded his

quiet

appreciation when she had described the theft of the car. She sat and

watched him, the bird and the gun. She knew what he planned to do that

night, had even seen the man he would kill and could remember each feature of that man's face. The excitement the knowledge engendered in

her was a liberation. At last, Gladys Eva Jones was a person of

importance. The sensation was as fresh as morning frost to her,

compared to the dull tedium of her parents' home, and the shunned, shut-out existence at the university. Her hand hovered over the hair at the back of his head. She thought of the empty boredom of Theft Section at the insurance company, and she stroked the hair on his

head

with the same gentleness as he caressed the feathers of the bird.

Her hand trembled, as if she sensed the danger of what she did. The bird flapped away in heavy flight, and his eyes followed it, watching its wing-beat.

Soon he would be gone with the rifle, and she would wait at the car for

him to return. He needed her, and the knowledge of it gave her the confidence to slip her hand down on to the skin and bristly hair at the

back of his neck... She knew the man who would be killed that night, and the house where he would be killed, and the excitement coursed 253

in

her.

There had been an older boy in her street who had a .22 air rifle.

It

was fired on wasteland where a factory had been demolished. Many

times

she'd gone after him to the waste ground and hung back, had never

qui4e

had the courage to ask him if she could fire it. She'd dreamed at night about the chance to hold the rifle, aim it, and fire it. One summer evening, the boy had shot a pellet against a passing bus, and the police had come and taken it away so she'd never had the chance.

But, for the lonely, unpopular girl, the rifle had stayed in her mind as the symbol of the boy's power. On the waste ground with his

friends, he swaggered when he carried it. The dream from childhood was

roused. One hand still stroked the hair at the back of his neck,

but

other

her

hand moved in slow stealth behind his back until her fingers

touched the weapon's barrel, which protruded from his bag. She felt its clean smoothness and the tackiness of the grease, and her fingers slid on the oiled parts. She imagined it against her shoulder, and her

finger against the trigger, and she touched the sharpness of the

foresight, and she thought of the sight locking on to the chest of the

man in the house on the green. Her hand moved faster, but more

firmly,

on the nape of his neck, but her fingers glided in gentleness on the cool metal of the rifle's barrel. He could see what she did, but

he

could not snatch the rifle away from her because that movement would frighten the bird.

She said, very quietly, "I should be with you."

"No."

"I could help you."

hand had moved to hers.

His free

She felt the roughness of his hand

covering it. She would be with him, following him, and sharing with e had, in truth, no comprehension of the thudding blow of

him. Sh

the

tock against a shoulder, or the ear-splitting noise of the

rifle s

254

discharge and the soaring kick of the barrel. She only understood the

power that the rifle offered. The pain was in her hand.

y

Relentlessl

he squeezed her hand down on to the sharp point of the foresight,

until she struggled to remove it. His eyes never left

crushed it

the

bird. He freed her hand and she quietly sucked the blood from the ctured wound.

small, pun

She kneaded the muscles at the back of his

neck.

"I go alone," Vahid Hossein said.

"Always I am alone."

"I am here to give you anything you need," Farida Yasmin whispered.

Meryl heard the impertinent, lingering blast of the bell.

She was in the kitchen, locking the legs of the ironing board, with the

heap of washed and dried clothes in a basket at her feet. She started r to still its insistent shrillness. It surprised her

for the doo

that

Frank had not gone to answer it. She heard the voice of Davies, the detective, speaking into his radio in the hall. Stephen was with

her,

cise

at the kitchen table, methodically writing in his school exer

book.

In spite of it all he was doing the weekend work that his class teacher had set. That was her next looming problem: Monday morning, and no school. Frank shouted down from upstairs that he was on the toilet.

ing for her to come, and assuring her

Davies was at the door, wait

that

the camera had picked up one of the village people. She switched

off

on.

the ir

All Frank had told her was that Martindale, the bastard, would not serve him.

r, and she saw Vince, smelt his beer breath.

Davies opened the doo

She was behind Davies.

"It's all right, Mr. Davies, it's Vince. Hello, Vince God, don't 255

say

e to start on the chimney."

you've com

Vince was the most fancied builder-decorator in the village. There

, but he was the best known.

were others

He was a great starter and

a

finisher, but those with a leak or a slipped tile or the need

poor

for

en repainting of a spare bedroom for a visitor knew they could

a sudd

rely on him. And he was a popular rogue... The Revenue had looked at

and he'd seen them off.

him twice in the last seven years,

ish council because

He was in a constant state of dispute with the par

the builders' supplies dumped in the front garden of his former

of

council house, now his freehold property, behind the church. Anyone ay a hand on a Bible and say they would never have a

who could l

rainwater leak or a slipped tile or the need for fast redecoration call him a fraud, a bully, a botcher. There were not many.

could

Small, powerful, his arms heavily tattooed, he was everybody's

friend,

and knew it and exploited it. What Vince believed in, above all else, was the quality of his humour. He had no doubt that his jokes made him

a popular cornerstone in the village.

Meryl tittered

sly. The

nervou

mortar was coming out of the brickwork

on the chimney. It was just something to say.

"Surely you're not going up there?"

"Actually, I've come for my money."

"What money? Why?"

owed."

"What I'm

aid you."

"Frank p

me two fifty down, but there was more materials I've got

"He paid

the

s."

bill

He was routing in his trouser pocket, dragging out small,

crumpled sheets of paper.

"I'm owed nineteen pounds and forty-seven pence.~

256

"You said it was inclusive, for Stephen's bedroom, everything for two

fifty."

"I got it wrong. You owe me."

"Then you'll get the extra when you come to do the chimney."

"If you're still here, if pigs fly, if-' "What does that mean?" He'd been in her kitchen. She made him four pots of tea each working day and gave him cake. She'd left him with the key when she'd gone out and

he'd been working in the house. She'd trusted him.

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"If you haven't moonlighted going, aren't you? I'll be left, owed nineteen ounds

p

and forty-seven pence, and you'll be gone. I've come

for my money."

She choked.

"I can't believe this. Aren't you Frank's friend? We're not going ere."

anywh

Well, you should be. You're not wanted."

"No?

tuttered, "Go away."

She s

e got my money."

"When I'v

etective moved without warning, stepping forward two, three

The d

paces.

at Vince's collar and had him up on to his toes.

He caught

When the

fist came up Davies caught it, as if he was handling a child. He

t hard against Vince's back, pivoted him round and marched

twisted i

him

back down the path. She heard everything Davies said into Vince's ear.

, scumbag, don't come here to play the fucking bully.

"Listen

Go back

to that godawful pub and tell them that these people aren't leaving.

't ever bloody come back here."

And don

With a jerk of his arm, the detective pushed Vince down on to his

knees

257

in the roadway, forced his face into the deepest and widest of the kept hold of him until he stopped struggling, lay still

puddles and

in

ion.

submiss

Davies released him, and stepped cleanly back to watch

Vince crawl away.

She leaned against the wall beside the door. Davies came back in

and

closed it quietly behind him. She hadn't noticed it before but

Frank's

trousers were too short for him and his sweater was too tight. She put

her hand on his arm.

"Thank you I don't suppose you should have done that."

"I don't suppose I should."

"Frank would have called him a friend he went up on the roof in a storm

last winter."

Very gently he took her hand from the sleeve of the sweater. She

't look into his face, didn't dare to.

didn