A Line in the Sand (62 page)

"It was the wrong person. He was never there. It was his woman...

His

hand came up and grasped at her wrist. He did not need her. His

strength pulled her down. They were not a partnership and there was to

nothing

share. She was on the ground, in the mud. She would never

know love. His hands prised at her clothes, the knee drove between her

legs, and she felt the rain beat on the exposed skin of her stomach.

"I want to see her."

It was an hour since the explosion and the first scream on the radio, and for most of that hour no one had told him. They had kept him

in

the area inside the mattresses and the sandbags, and they'd filled his

glass. A man had come in a crisp uniform, rank badges on his

shoulder,

and had used the soft language that they taught on courses for

handling

the bereaved, and then gone as soon as was half decent.

chin shook.

"Damn you, I want to see her, listen-' Blake's

"Want away, but you can't."

Perry shouted, "I've the right."

Davies said calmly, "You can't see her, Mr. Perry, because there is

nothing to see that you would recognize. Most of what you would

ze, Mr. Perry, is on the wallpaper or on the ceiling. It

recogni

413

was

ision, Mr.

your dec

Perry, to stay, and this is the consequence of

that

decision. Better you face that than keep shouting. Get a grip on yourself."

It was as if Davies had slapped him. He understood. The slap on

the

face was to control the hysteria. He nodded, and was silent. Paget through the front, followed by Rankin who had his arm round

came in

Stephen's shoulder. The child was white-faced, his mouth gaping.

The

child sleep-walked across the hall slowly, and Rankin loosed his

arm and let him collapse against

supporting

Perry. He held the boy hard against him, and thought about

consequences. He saw the stern faces around him, and there was no criticism, there was nothing. If the child had cried or kicked or fought against him it would have been easier, but Stephen was limp in

his arms.

He heard Rankin say, "I thought I had him, don't understand, thought I

saw him go down."

He heard Paget say, "He's like a dripping tap. He missed, and the daft

tart can't accept that he missed with a double tap."

The woman screamed.

They were on the ground in front of her, in the epic entre of her

torch

beam She shrieked for her dogs, and ran.

She walked her dogs each evening before going to bed, summer and

winter, moonlight or rain.

Policemen from an unmarked car ran towards the screams. It was

several

ore they could get a coherent statement from the panting,

minutes bef

shouting woman of what she had seen.

"Black Toby.. . his ghost, his woman... Black Toby with her, what he

414

did to be hanged... It's where they hanged him, hanged Black Toby..."

They went forward with the spot-lamps, her trailing behind them, and ipping ahead in the darkness.

her dogs sk

apter Eighteen.

Ch

rward, peering into the misted windscreen.

e was hunched fo

Chalmers

s beside him with the dogs under his legs they didn't speak.

wa

off Markham wrenched the car round the bends in the lanes, back

Ge

towards the village and the sea.

Once more he had listened to Fenton on the telephone and been too

of emotion to take offence at the rambling, cursing diatribe

drained

thrown at him. He'd just finished at the borrowed typewriter, had just

sealed the envelope, when the first news of disaster had broken, and he'd

en

be

in the crisis centre trying to make sense from the confusion

of the reports when the second package of news had come over the radio.

ected Chalmers from the canteen. The envelope with the

He'd coll

letter

as jammed in his pocket, like a reproach.

in it w

ar Sirs, I am in receipt of your letter setting out your proposals De

for terms of employment. I have changed my mind, and am no longer seeking work

from

away

the Security Service. I apologize for wasting

your time and am grateful for the courtesies shown me. Obligations, itments, duty fold-fashioned words used by wririlded fartsl seem

comm

to

rwhelmed me. I'm sorry if you find this difficult to

have ove

understand.

Sincerely,

sick, small.

He felt

"I want to go home... Markham's eyes never left the road. After two catastrophic news reports, and after the battering from Fenton, he needed a butt for his anger, and a chance to purge the guilt welling in

ers was available. Markham snarled, "When the work's

him. Chalm

finished you go home not a day or an hour or a minute before... We made

a mistake. We could have made the same mistake if the target had

been

415

in a tower block of a housing estate, in a good suburb, anywhere,

but

we did it in a village like this at the back end of bloody nowhere.

We

made a mistake by thinking it was the right thing to move his wife out,

get rid of her, to clear the arcs of fire. We lost her. Losing her is

damn near the same, to me, as losing him. It was convenient to ship her out, so we took that road. It's crashing down around us, it's disaster. Listen hard, if you say that it's not your quarrel then you're just like them. You are an imitation of those people in that village. They are moral dwarfs. It was not their quarrel so they turned their backs and walked away, crossed over to the other side of

oody street.

the bl

You aren't original, it's what we've heard for

the

k. So, find another tune. You're staying till I say you

last wee

can

hought better of you, but I must have been wrong."

go. I t

no quarrel with him."

"I've

kham mimicked, ""No quarrel, want to go home" forget it.

Geoff Mar

Let

you, I considered taking you down to the hospital morgue.

me tell

I

uld have walked you in there, filthy little creature that you are, co

with those bloody dogs, and I could have told the attendant to pull the

tray out of the refrigerated cupboard, and I could have shown her

to

t I couldn't have shown you her face. You aren't going to

you, bu

the

morgue because I cannot show you Meryl Perry's face it doesn't exist.

That's why we aren't going there."

Down the lanes, towards the village... "We all want to cross over the

ad and look the other way.

ro

Don't worry about it, you're not alone.

I

because, and I'm ashamed, I've said it myself.

understand you

I went

after different work, outside what I do now.

ing the road", for me, was sneaking out of the office in the

"Cross

lunch-hour and going for a job interview.

416

"Looking the other way" was listening to my fiance and hunting for a

cash increase. I'm ashamed of myself. I wrote a letter tonight,

Mr.

Chalmers, and the price of the letter is my fiancee. And what I've learned since I came here is that I, and you, cannot walk away from what has to be done."

As they approached the village, the clock on the church tower was

striking midnight, its chimes muffled in the rainstorm. To the left were the pig-sheds in the field, to the right was the common ground of

scrub and gorse, and in front of them was a policeman waving them

down.

Markham showed his card and a rain soaked arm pointed to a pool of arc-lights. The dogs ran free and they walked towards it. The wind e rain into their faces.

brought th

"Why can't you believe you have a quarrel with this man?"

"He's done me no harm."

a woman, damn you, with no head."

"There's

"He saved the bird."

"What bloody bird?"

"He's done the bird good."

He thought Chalmers struggled to articulate a deep feeling, but

Markham

hadn't the patience to understand him.

"You're talking complete crap.~ The blow came, without warning, out of

the darkness. A short-arm punch, closed fist, caught Markham on the f the face.

side o

He staggered. He was slipping, going down into

the

mud.

second stabbed punch caught the point of his chin.

A

The pain

smarted in his face. He saw men hustle forward, the rain peeling

off

their bodies. They were grotesque shadows, trapping Chalmers,

swarming

around him, as his dogs fought at their an ides their boots, and were 417

kicked away.

"Show him show him what the bastard did. He doesn't think it's his business, so show him."

They dragged Chalmers forward. Markham heard a squeal of pain,

thought

almers had bitten one of them, and he saw the swing of a truncheon.

Ch

tent of plastic sheeting. Inside it, the light was

There was a

brilliant and relentless.

He saw her.

up close, get him to see what the bastard did."

"Get him

She was on her back. Geoff Markham had to force himself to look.

Her

jeans were dragged down, dirtied and wet, to her knees and her legs had

wide apart. Her coat was ripped open. A sweater had

been forced

been

up and a blouse was torn aside.

pushed

He could see the dark shape

of

but little of the whiteness of her stomach above it.

her hair,

The

skin was blood-smeared, bloodstained, blood-spattered. Her mouth

gaped

r eyes were big, frozen, in fear. He knew her. There

open and he

was

tograph of her in the files

the old pho

of Rainbow Gold: the eyes had

th had been closed; she had held her privacy

been small and the mou

d

an

worn the clothes of her Faith. Looking past the policemen and over Chalmers's shoulders, he stared down at the body.

Andy

He had seen

the

f men in Ireland and they'd had the gaping mouths and the

bodies o

open

nd the fear that remained after death.

eyes, a

He had never before

seen

of a raped, violated woman. Before they had built the

the body

plastic

tent the rain had made streams of blood on the skin. Except for Cathy Parker, and her report relayed to him that morning, they had all lost ladys Eva Jones, the loser, and now he saw her. Except

sight of G

for

Cathy Parker, and then it had been too late, they had all ignored

418

her

ng woman from a small provincial city

because they had rated this you

as

f importance, not worthy of consideration.

irrelevant in matters o

He

saw in his mind the photograph of the face of Vahid Hossein and the ainty that it held.

cold cert

Chalmers said nothing.

rkham stammered, "God, the bastard a frenzy.

Ma

He must be a bloody

animal to do that."

erall suit looked up coldly from beside the body,

A man in a white ov

d said clinically, "That's not a frenzy, she was strangled.

an

The

cause of death is manual asphyxiation. That's not her blood -she's not

a cut on her. It's his."

n?"

"What does that mea

erely wounded, knife or gunshot.

"It means that the "animal" is sev

ere is evidence of sexual penetration, probably simultaneous with

Th

her

ing strangled. During the sexual act, during the exertion of

be

manual

ation, he bled on her."

strangul

rkham turned away. He said, to no one, to the mass of

Ma

im-faced men behind him, "So, there's a blood trail so, the dogs gr

V

ll have him."

wi

ce from the darkness said, "There's no blood trail and there's A voi

no

If you hadn't noticed, it's raining. In pissing rain

scent.

there's

no chance."

s, and walked

Markham gestured for them to loose their hold on Chalmer

ay.

aw

Chalmers was behind him. He groped back towards the car and

the

the rest of his life, he would never lose the sight of

road. For

Gladys Eva Jones. He stumbled and slithered in the darkness.

e

Th

letter in his pocket would be soaked and the envelope sodden.

419

"Will you, please, Mr. Chalmers, please, go out and find him?"

"Are you going or are you staying?"

"Staying."

Frank Perry lay on the floor between the mattresses and behind the sandbags. Stephen slept against him, his head was in the crook of his

stepfather's arm.

"So be it."

"Are you criticizing me?"

"I just do my job. Criticizing isn't a part of it. I've some calls to

make."

Davies had towered over him.

"What happened to the people who took Meryl in?"