A Line in the Sand (59 page)

She had wa

the

overgrown garden and a sold sign over a for-sale board, short of

church, on the other side of the road. The curtains were loosely

drawn

on the windows facing the road, but at the back of the house they

were

not pulled across and spilled light on to the garden. The grass at the

back, ringed by untended flower-beds, was long and leaf-strewn. The shirt the child wore was bright red and there was a crest on the chest pant leopards and the logo sign of a vehicle-insurance company,

of ram

the same shirt she had seen him wearing in the car. The child kicked ll round the grass. He played on his own, the hero and

the footba

the

star.

'd met him at the

As soon as she

field gate, she'd told him what she'd

seen, and now she repeated it. In the car, as she'd blistered him with

the information, he had seemed no more willing to believe her than he

did now.

391

"The cars came back without him and his wife and the child. It was done fast, to deceive you, in the darkness. They've moved him to

make

it easier for themselves. Can't you see it? They've made a trap

and

now they don't have the responsibility of protecting him when it's sprung. They want you at the house on the green they want to kill you

there when they don't have the responsibility for him."

e doubt creased his voice.

"You are sure?" Th

She told him that she was sure. She had seen the boy, the child,

with

the football on the lawn lit by the back windows of the cottage.

e

Th

trap was the house on the green where the guns waited for him. They were beside the car, in black darkness, among the scrub of the common ground beyond the village. It hurt her that she could not convince him.

"Don't you trust me? You should. Without me, on their terms, you would walk into a trap. Trust me. We are a partnership, that's

equal

parts don't you see that?"

She told him that he was nothing without her, and he seemed to reel away from her. She would go back, walk through the village a last time

come back and tell him what she had seen. He squatted down, holding the launcher in his hands, as if it were a child's valued toy or a believer's relic. She told him how long she would be. He had

already

gobbled down the sandwiches she had brought him. He stank of the

mud

ck into

in the marsh and the still water. Farida Yasmin walked ba

the

village.

There were lights on in the church, throwing multi-colours through the

high windows, and she could hear the organist practising.

Over the hedge she saw the child boot the ball into the far darkness beyond the spill of the light, and leap and whoop with pleasure as if

he had found freedom.

392

She walked the length of the green. She saw the cars outside the

house

and the same drawn curtains as had been there before. She could see, he street-light, that the camera set high on the front wall

from t

of

tracked her, then lost interest, its lens veering away.

the house

enough. She was certain.

It was

d the rustle of a sweet-paper.

She hear

lo, it's the student, yes? My friend Peggy told me about you

"Hel

hope

startle you, just walking the dog.

I didn't

I'm Paul. I'm your man

when you start your interviews..."

She endured his patronizing talk as they went back past the green, the

darkened house and the lens, through the village.

o

It was useful t

have him beside her when she went by the lens, when she was caught in

the headlights of one of the moving cars. Walking with him gave her earance of being a part of the community.. . She told the

the app

man,

Paul, that she would definitely find him when she came to do her

interviews, and he left her at the pub.

The child was no longer in the garden. She saw the shape of a man through the gap in the curtains.

She cut off the road, stumbled across the common ground, wove between e, trees and bramble thickets, to the car.

the gors

"It's as I said it was. I'm certain."

After she

bought

had

the sandwiches for him she had gone to a chemist's

in the town, and selected a perfume. Before he had come to the field she had anointed her body with it.

gate

ve to be trusted," Farida Yasmin whispered.

"I deser

still hunched down beside the wheel of the car, holding the

He was

launcher. He had not moved.

"I want to be with you..."

393

His eyes stayed down, locked to the launcher and the ground at his feet.

"I've done enough to deserve that. I can help, carry what you need.

You've taught me. I want to be there when you fire the launcher.

I

want to see it happen and be a part of it."

She was crouched close to him and her fingers touched the smooth,

oiled

surface of the launcher's barrel.

"I can do it, help you.

She saw his head move decisively, side to side. He denied her.

Her eyes tightened in confusion.

"Haven't you thought about me? Haven't you considered what I want?

What about the risks I've taken? Where's my future? Because of you, because of the people who sent you, I've lost everything. I'm

hunted.

You'll go, be picked up on the beach so, who's thought about me? I'll be caught, interrogated, locked up is that what you want?"

He never looked at her. She caught his hand and held it tight in

her

fist. There was no response.

"Are you going to take me back with you? That's best, isn't it, that I

go back with you to the beach and on to the ship? There'd be a life there, for us, back where you come from, wouldn't there?"

It was her dream. They were together on the great deck of the tanker.

It was night and the stars were above them, and they ploughed through the endless water, and they were alone. And the same perfume that she

wore now would be on her neck then. She would be introduced to high functionaries and her part in the death of an enemy would be

explained,

men would bob their heads in

and grave

re sped and thank her for what

e had done.

sh

She could see the startled faces of her parents, and

the

astonished, dull faces of the girls at work, when they learned the 394

at Farida Yasmin had achieved.

truth of wh

"I'm finished here. So, you don't take me with you tonight, I understand... But I go on to the ship with you, don't I?"

ness, he began to clean the firing mechanism of the

In the dark

launcher.

light, he had been shown the tyre marks.

By torch

Geoff Markham had been marched through the wood, had blundered after the light-footed shadow of Andy Chalmers in front, tried to keep up with him and his dogs, and had then been pushed without ceremony down on to his knees as the torch was shone into the cavity at the back of

the bramble thicket.

He had queried it again, rejecting what he didn't want to hear.

He had been dragged up, pulled towards the water. He capitulated

and

said it was all right, yes, he accepted Chalmers's conclusion. If he

had queried again he would have been pulled in his city clothes into the water and he'd have been propelled towards a tree-trunk and a

submerged oil drum.

There was a crunched sound under his feet. The torch beam pointed out

the stripped rabbit bones he stood on.

"I just want reassurance there is no other explanation?"

"He's gone.~

He had been lost. He had driven round a web of lanes. He had finally found Chalmers sitting with his dogs by the gate of a field. He.

had

expressed his first doubts at the grunted report of the tracker, then been hijacked and taken off into the woods. He didn't want to believe what he was told because of the catastrophic implications of

Chalmers's

assessment.

"Could he merely have moved deeper into the marshland?"

395

o."

"N

itterly, "But we don't know where he's gone."

He said, b

one in the car."

"G

ould he be returning?"

"C

o gear left hide's empty. He's cleared out."

"N

ey walked back to his car.

Th

It was the worst situation. He would

be

secure line to Fenton from the crisis centre to report that

on the

they

d lost their man.

ha

There'd be the hissed slip of Fenton's breath,

and

repeat that they had lost their man, and then a volley of

he would

ths would bleat in his ear. He was familiar with analysis and

oa

ons and with the computer spewing answers.

intellectual storm sessi

at

Wh

he had been shown was a short length of tyre marks in the dirt at

the

side of a lane and, by torchlight, a hollowed place in the depth of a

took on trust the description of the

bramble thicket. He

ding-place.

hi

The torch had been switched off. They came through the dense

nd

woodla

ranches all seemed to whip his face and not Chalmers's,

and the low b

d where there was a soft pit in

an

the ground his feet found it and

not

. With his scratched face and sodden feet, he followed

Chalmers's

the

ell and could not see the man ahead

sm

of him until they reached the

car.

The stench of the man and the filth of the dogs filled the small

he water dripped off Chalmers and the mud on the dogs

interior. T

was

across the seats.

smeared

want to go home."

"I

" Markham snapped.

"Too right,

you will go, but not much of the journey in my bloody car."

"Home

396

He drove at savage speed down the lanes towards the main road and

the

town, and the crisis centre. They had lost him. It would end at

the

house on the green, where the bloody goat bleated at the end of its bloody tether. He hit the brakes, swung the car through the lanes'

bends, pounded the accelerator. Beside him, Chalmers, stinking and dripping, slept.

"Do you like to talk about it?"

"No, Mrs. Perry, I don't like to."

"I don't want to pry.

ll say one thing to you only, and then, please, it is a closed

"I wi

book... It was over. Molotovs don't win against tanks. We went back to our homes, which was stupid. I was denounced by people who lived in

my street. When the soldiers came, I and others tried to flee over the

roofs from my parents' apartment. We were identified by the people in

our street. When we were on the roofs they pointed the soldiers

towards us. They were the same people I had lived with, played with as

a child. They were my friends and my parents' friends, and they

showed

us to the soldiers ... We saw what happened last night. We heard

what

Mr. Perry said."

"Thank you, Luisa, thank you from the depths of my heart."

"What I like to talk about is old furniture, and gardening."

"It's a good time to get cuttings in," Meryl said.

"I'd like to help you with that."

vies had dozed on

Blake was long gone, back to the house. Bill Da

his

bed. The room was in chaos, Blake always left it that way, clothes on

the floor, towels on the bed. Davies was reminded, and it hurt, of 397

the

room his boys shared.

still hadn't rung home, couldn't face it...

He

climbed off the bed and sluic

He

ed some of the tiredness out of his

eyes at the basin. He'd call by at the house to collect his car,

then

search for another dreary little pub to eat in... He reflected that the

home where Meryl had been taken in was oft-limits, but he'd have

have gone there, talked to her.

preferred to

She'd kissed him when

m, and had cried as he'd held her awkwardly.

she'd thanked hi

She'd

en so bloody soft and vulnerable.

be

Too long since it had been like

that with Lily.. . He changed his shirt.

back to the

Couldn't go

house in a shirt with Meryl's lipstick on the collar.

He went down the stairs. The door to their living room was half

open.

He realized she had been waiting for him, listening for his descent.

She came with a quick, scurrying step out of her living room and he could see her husband in his chair by the fire, and the poor bastard shame in his eyes. She held the sheet of paper in her

had some

fingers. He understood.

She handed him the account.

He didn't argue, and didn't say that he had seen her standing in the ws behind the mob.

shado

He took the banknotes from his pocket and

paid

her for

s

hi

bed and for Blake's. He went back up the stairs and packed

their bags.

She was waiting by the door.