HOME RUN (46 page)

The Station Officer could no longer stay awake.

On a pad beside the telephone in the bedroom was written the code of Dogubeyezit and the number of the Ararat hotel.

The call from London, if it came, would be in clear. There was no difficulty in that. The codeword for a halt, a postponement, had been agreed via the teleprinter in his office before he had shut up shop for the evening. In an ideal world he should not have been snuggling against his wife's back, in his own bed, he should have been close to that wretched frontier, up in north-eastern Anatolia. He should have been hugging the Iranian border, not his wife's slim back. No question of him being there. The frontier was out of bounds, the border was closed territory after the lifting of the Desk Head (Iran).

He had not been told the reason that there might, possibly but not probably, be a hold put on Eshraq's movement. He had no need to know why there might conceivably be a hold. . . . If there were a hold then he would communicate it. He drifted towards sleep. He had rather enjoyed the company of the young man who had come to the park in Ankara. A bit wild, of course. Any man going inside Iran with LAW 8os was entitled to be a bit bloody-minded. But they had thrashed out their lines of communication. Not that he would last. Not possible that he would survive.

"Terence, is that 'phone going to ring tonight? There'll be murder if it does."

"Don't know, love, I really don't know."

They had not slept. They had lain on sleeping bags on the concrete floor inside the inner hall of the Guards' barracks at Maku. The investigator was amongst the last to push himself back up to his feet. There were some amongst them who prayed, and some who worked with clean cloths at the firing mechanisms of their automatic rifles. The investigator wandered out of the inner hall in search of the latrine, and after the latrine he would be in search of the Communications room and news from the men who watched a hotel across the border.

It was sensible of him to leave the inner hallway for the latrine and the Communications room. If he had stayed then it would have been remarked that he had not prayed. It was hard for him to pray because the words of the Qur'an held no place in his mind. He had no time that early morning because his mind was filled with the vision of armour-piercing missiles and a Transit van and the man who had been named by Matthew Furniss.

He would enjoy his meetings with Mr Eshraq. He thought that he might enjoy conversing with Charlie Eshraq more than he had enjoyed talking to Matthew Furniss.

* * *

The clock was striking in the hall.

And the dog was restless, and sometimes there was the heavy scratching at the kitchen door, and sometimes there was the clamour of the animal shaking the big link chain on its throat. The dog wouldn't sleep, not while there were still people moving in the house and voices.

Mattie heard the clock.

The light was in his eyes. He was on the sofa and they had stripped his shoes off and they had heaved his feet, too, on to the sofa. His tie was off, and the shirt buttons were undone down to his navel. He could see nothing but the light. The light was directed from a few feet so that it shone directly into his face.

It was a long time since they had hit him, kicked him, but the light was in his face and the Major was behind him and holding his head so that he could not look away from the light, and the bastard Henry fucking Carter was behind the light.

Questions . . . the soft and gentle drip of questions. Always the questions, and so bloody tired . . . so hellishly tired. And the hands were on his head, and the light was in his eyes, and the questions dripped at his mind.

"Past all our bedtimes, Mattie. Just what you told them . . . ?"

"A young man's life, Mattie, that's what we're talking about. So, what did you tell them . . . ?"

"Nobody's going to blame you, Mattie, not if you come clean. What did you tell them . . . ?"

"All that barbarian stuff, that's over, Mattie, no more call for that, and you're with friends now. What did you tell them . . . ?"

Too tired to think, and too tired to speak, and his eyes burned in the light.

"I don't remember. I really don't remember."

"Got to remember, Mattie, because there is a life hanging on you remembering what you told them . . . "

* * *

Park watched the peace of Charlie Eshraq's sleep.

He wondered how it would be, to live with love. He was alone and he was without love. He was without Parrish, and Token, and Harlech, and Corinthian. He was without Ann.

He was away from what he knew. What he knew was behind him, back at the Lane. What he knew had been stripped from him on the nineteenth floor of Century House.

He did not know how to find love.

He thought that going to Bogota was a journey to escape from love . . .

There was the sharp bleep of the alarm on Eshraq's wrist.

He watched as Eshraq stirred, then shook himself. Eshraq was rubbing hard at his eyes, and then sliding from his bed and going to the window. The curtain was dragged back.

There was a grey wash of early light in the room. Eshraq stretched.

"Pretty good morning to be starting a journey."

There was a glass of Scotch and water beside him. The Major sat on the sofa beside him. Henry was at the window. He had his ear cocked and he stared outside, and probably he was listening to the first shouted songs of the blackbirds.

It was the third Scotch that had been given to Mattie, and each had less water than before.

The Major had his arm, shirt-sleeved, loosely around Mattie's shoulder.

The Major smiled into Mattie's face.

"You know where you're going, Mattie, in a few hours?

You know where you'll be by lunch time? Do you know, Mattie?"

The slurred response. "I want to see a doctor, I want to go to bed and sleep, and then I want to go home."

"A magistrate's court, Mattie."

"Bollocks."

"The charge will be conspiracy to import heroin."

"Don't be so fucking silly, Major. It's too late at night for games."

"Charlie ran heroin. Heroin subsidized him. You ran Charlie. You're going down, old boy, going down for a long time."

And the arm was round his shoulder, and Mattie was trying to push himself up from the sofa and away from the calm of the voice in his ear, and he hadn't a prayer, hadn't the strength.

"Nothing to do with me."

"Fifteen years you'll get. Very hard years, Mattie."

"Not me."

"You'll be in with the queers and the con artists and the GBH lads, in with them for fifteen years. It's all sewn up, Mattie. How's Mrs Furniss going to cope with that? Is she going to traipse up to the Scrubs every first Tuesday in the month? And your daughters. I doubt they'll come more than once or twice."

"I don't know anything about heroin, nothing, not at all."

"Ask the magistrate to believe you, Mattie . . . Ask him to believe that you didn't know how Charlie Eshraq, more or less a son to you, funded himself. . . and ask Mrs Furniss to believe that you didn't know. It'll break her, Mattie, you being inside. Think on it."

"It's just not true."

"She won't have a friend in the world. Have to sell up at Bibury, of course. Couldn't face the neighbours, could she?

Your neighbours'll be a bit foul, Mattie, the jokers in your cell, they have their pride and heroin they don't like."

"It's a lie, I know nothing about heroin."

"It's all been a lie, Mattie. It starts with the lie that you didn't name Charlie Eshraq . . . Did Eshraq fuck your daughters?"

The pause, the silence. Henry had turned. Henry looked at his watch, grimaced. The Major nodded, like he thought that he was nearly dry, close to home.

"Mattie, Charlie Eshraq was running heroin out of Iran when he was fucking your daughters. Do you reckon heroin came with the service, Mattie?"

"It's not, tell me that's not true."

There was the first shrill call of the birds.

"It's what I hear."

"God . . . "

"Pushed heroin to your daughters, Eshraq did."

"The truth ; . . . ? "

"It's you I want the truth from."

"Charlie gave that filthy stuff to my girls?"

"You've just had bad luck, Mattie, a long run of terrible luck."

There were tears running down Mattie's cheeks, and the hands that held the glass shook. The Major had raised his head and Henry could see his eyebrows aloft.

Carter said, from the window, "You named him, Mattie?"

"It wasn't my fault."

"No, Mattie, it wasn't. And nobody will hold it against you."

Henry came to the sofa. He had his notepad in his hand.

He wrote a single sentence and he put a pencil in Mattie's hand, and he watched the scrawled signature made. He buffeted off the hall table on his way to the telephone and there was pandemonium in the kitchen.

The Major was at the door of the lounge, on his way out.

It did not seem necessary for them to shake hands. Henry went back into the lounge. He went to Mattie. He took his arm and hoisted him, unsteady, to his feet.

"Can I go home?"

"I think that's a good idea . . . I'll drive you myself."

"Tell me that it wasn't true."

"Of course not, Mattie. It was an unforgivable trick. I am so very sorry."

Dawn was coming, and at first sight the day looked promising.

21

He was looking down from the window and into the yard.

There was a kid, ten or eleven years old, scrubbing at the windscreen, and Eshraq was hunched down by the front radiator screen and he already had the Turkish registration off and he was holding the Iranian plate in place while he screwed it tight. There were lights in the kitchens that backed on to the yard, and they threw shadows into the yard.

He was dressed and he was shaved when the telephone bell rang in the room. He was zipping shut his bag, and he had his passport and his wallet on the bed beside him, and the ticket for the flight back to Istanbul. The telephone in the room had not rung since they had arrived in Dogubeyezit.

Below him, Eshraq had the front plate secure, and was moving to the rear of the Transit. He was moving easily and casual in old jeans and trainer shoes and a service blue cotton shirt. And the telephone was still ringing.

He picked it up. He heard the clicking of big distance connections. He heard a small voice and far away.

"Is that room 12?"

"This is room 1 2 . "

"Is that David Park?"

"Park speaking."

"I want to speak to Charlie."

"He's not here."

"Bugger . . . I've been cut off twice on your switchboard.

Can you get him?"

"Take me a bit of time."

"And we'll get cut again, God. Name's Terence, I met him in Ankara."

He remembered the Genclik park. He had been 400 yards back, and Eshraq and the man had walked, and there had been a tail. He remembered it very clearly. He could picture Terence. Terence was pale skin, almost anaemic, with fair hair and a missing chin, and he looked to have come from a good school.

"If you give me the message I'll pass it."

"You can reach him?"

"If you give me the message I can reach him."

"The telephones in this country are bloody awful . . . You guarantee he gets my message?"

"I'll pass it."

"This is an open line."

"That's stating the obvious."

"He's not to go . . . That is a categorical instruction from my people. He is not to approach the border. He is compromised, can't say more than that. He is to return to Ankara.

Do you understand the message?"

"Understood."

"Most grateful to you."

"For nothing."

"I might see you in Ankara - and many thanks for your help."

He replaced the telephone. He went back to the window.

The rear plate was in place and the kid was scrubbing dust off the Transit's headlights. There had been the tail in Istanbul, and the tail in Ankara. He assumed they had been better in Dogubeyezit, because he had not been certain of the men on the tail, not certain as he had been in Aksaray and the Genclik park. He was a long time at the window. There were many images in the mind of David Park. There was, in his mind, Leroy Winston Manvers back in the corner of the cell, and he was at safe haven in Jamaica. There was the wife of Matthew Furniss at the door of a cottage in the country, and her husband was the guarantor of a heroin trafficker, and he was on safe wicket back in the United Kingdom. There was Charlie Eshraq sitting on the bonnet of a Sierra saloon and mocking him, and he was on safe passage out. There were images of Ann and wet towels on the bathroom floor, and images of the supercilious creature who had done the big put down at Foreign and Commonwealth, and images of Bill Parrish stuck in an ante-room outside the office of the power and the glory at Century. He knew what was right and he knew what was wrong. He had to know. Right and wrong were the core of his life. He moved around the room. He checked each drawer of the chest and each shelf of the cupboard, and he frisked the bathroom. He made sure that they had left nothing behind. He slung on his jacket and put his passport and his airline ticket into the inner pocket with his wallet, and he threw his grip bag over his shoulder.

You will satisfy yourself that he has indeed travelled back into
Iran.

At the Reception he paid for the room. They had made out a joint bill, and he paid it. He folded the receipt carefully and put it into his wallet. He didn't give the porter a tip, because he couldn't claim on tips, and anyway he preferred to carry his own bag. He put his bag in the small hire car, locked it away from sight. He went back inside the hotel and took a side door beside the staircase, and then the corridor that led into the yard at the back. The tail doors of the Transit were open and David could see the drums of electrical flex piled to the roof and stacked tight.

"What kept you?"

He started. He hadn't seen Eshraq at the front of the Transit, he'd lost him. He was looking at the drums and he was wondering how successfully they hid the wooden crates.