A Line in the Sand (46 page)

Fenton

there.

"What do I do? Lock him in the bloody broom cupboard?"

Fenton told him to get Perry's friends in and get the bottles out.

d to me, Mr.

"If you only listene

Fenton. The friends have all quit

the ship, they're jumping off the decks. All right, most of their friends. I'm planning to meet the vicar in the morning, seemed a

n. I thought if the village saw the vicar with him that

decent ma

might

conscience..."

spark some

him to take the Perrys out for the evening, splash out

Fenton told

on a

303

l, no expense spared, to sweet-talk them and relax them.

smart mea

'll do that, Mr.

"I

Fenton, I'll book a table for tonight for them

and

a busload of police should be a really jolly evening. I'm sorry to have troubled you at home... Maybe we can find a restaurant that

s

serve

goat."

boiled

Donna should have stayed the extra year at school. At eighteen she was

already as much on the shelf as the tins of beans, sweet corn and

k curries that she stacked at the supermarket in the town.

quick-coo

She

was trapped and she knew it. She wrote in a child's laborious hand for

jobs in hair salons and with beauticians, but most of her letters

were

ignored and a few were rejected in three lines. She was unskilled and

unqualified. In the village, only Meryl Perry had time for her and her the old magazines with which she could dream of smart salons

gave

and bright beauty shops where rich women would come to her for advice, about their private lives and offer her respect. Only the

gossip

Perrys cared enough to fuel the dream, and she broke the boredom of d her parents, for ever sitting in front of the blaring

home, an

television, with little pockets of relief when she stayed with

Stephen

while Frank and Meryl were out for an evening. They picked her up, they dropped her back, they gave her a small sense of importance.

in through the door, murmured his request to Davies, took

He came

a big

nd strode into the kitchen.

breath a

said brightly, "I think we need an evening out, Frank.

Markham

It's

to cheer ourselves up."

time for a splash on my masters' expenses,

Sausages were frying on the stove. The packet of instant mashed

potato

was ready at the side. Perry looked at him, astonished.

"We're going out, enough of being shut up in here. We're going out to

drink a restaurant dry, to murder their menu. No argument, no

tion, and I'm picking up the tab."

hesita

304

Perry asked, hesitant, "Where are we going at this time on a Sunday night, who'll have us?"

"We leave that to Bill. He's the expert, spends half his time getting his principals into restaurants that say they're full." He tried to

laugh.

Meryl asked, flat-voiced, "Who's going to look after Stephen?"

He turned and saw her blank, reddened eyes.

"I'm sure you've a regular babysitter. Let's get a call to her, we'll collect. Don't you worry about the detail, Mrs. Perry, just get

yourself ready and let us take the strain."

Perry said, "I'm not sure-' "Yes, you are, Mr. Perry. It's what's going to happen."

Meryl said, "I don't know that I want to go out."

"Yes, you do, Mrs. Perry. It's what's best."

He manipulated them, they danced for him. He had boasted to the man and woman at the bank that he was prepared to use people in the

interests of policy and here he was, doing it. Meryl Perry was

lifting

the frying pan off the cooker and muttering that the sausages would do

for tomorrow, and that she'd already fed Stephen. Perry was at the it for Donna's number.

telephone and scanning the list above

Bill Davies leaned through the doorway and said the local police had m the name of a place but it was twenty-two miles away and

given hi

they'd have to shift themselves. He'd called the restaurant and he'd d people to check it out. Markham thought she looked so

organize

cudgelled, so damned helpless. He asked her gently if she wanted

to

change, and wished that Harry bloody Fenton were here to see her.

Meryl

went out and he heard her deadened step up the stairs.

"Do you have a girl, Frank, to come in?"

two planks, but decent and loyal Meryl's been great to her

"Thick as

305

lled.

and she's fond of Stephen." Perry lifted the phone and dia

Two cars were pulling up outside Blake coming to take over inside

the

house and the change of shift for the hut. Markham drew a sigh of

: at least he had achieved something.

relief

His mind flipped back

to

ndon: the letter would be at his flat in the morning, with the terms Lo

of employment. He would ring Vicky later if they survived the meal and

ask her to go round and collect it,

of

to read it to him. Once he'd resigned they would boot him out

Thames House so fast his feet wouldn't touch the ground. How would it

be, a year later, ten years later, when he walked down the Embankment and went past the bullet-proof windows and the concrete bollards?

Would

he feel fulfilled, streaming with the commuter hordes into the City?

He had played God before, with agents' lives, and was playing God

now.

He wondered how it would be playing God with savers' investment

accounts and pension holdings. If he hadn't met Vicky, he would know sweet nothing about investments and pensions. He heard the anger

in

y's voice.

Frank Perr

do

"What

you mean, you're not coming? Is it you can't come, or won't?

It's nothing to do with your father, nothing to do with anyone but yourself. Listen here, we've been damn good to you. We're about

the

only bloody people in this place who have been. I thought better

of

you."

hand trembled as he tried to return the telephone to the

Perry's

wall-fitting. Then, he took a pen and scratched out Donna's name

and

number from the list on the wall. Over his shoulder, Markham could see

the list. Donna was inked out along with most of the others. There itifully few names and numbers left unscathed.

were p

kitchen door, Bill Davies took the radio away from his face.

At the

"Dave Paget and Joe Rankin will stay on. They've had kids

306

themselves,

d help the poor blighters. They can do child-minding.

Go

me down the stairs.

Meryl ca

es hadn't been red and puffed, Markham thought, she would

If her ey

have

lous. The poor damn woman had made the effort. He

looked marve

noticed

Davies take her hand and murmur something in her ear, but he

Bill

didn't catch what was said. When they'd gathered in the hall, the Paget and Rankin that there were sausages and mashed

detective told

potato on the stove for their supper. The two men, in their boiler and vests, with their pistols hanging from their waists,

suits

thanked

lly.

him balefu

came through the front door, carrying five fire extinguishers.

Blake

He

mped them down noisily, then went to the car again, retrieved a

du

heavyweight blanket from the boot with a box of gas grenades, and

back into the house.

staggered

Markham thought it predictable that

there should be more fire extinguishers inside, one for each room; the

additional bullet- and shrapnel-proof blanket was for draping over a

air to make a wider protective barrier; the gas grenades were

ch

standard. But he wished that Meryl Perry hadn't seen them.

She asked where Donna was, and was told.

n't given time to think about it.

She was

She was made to run to the

en car door, her heels clattering down the path. There was an

op

escort

front and another behind.

vehicle in

Their front windows were down

and

could see the machine-guns. Well done, Harry Fenton,

Markham

another

great idea. As he helped to hustle her through the gate and pitch her

into the car, he thought it was all, already, unravelling. Bill

Davies

came after him and seemed to be shielding Perry.

Markham drove. Beside him, the detective sat awkwardly because he'd ed his body so that his hand

twist

could rest free on the pistol in

307

his

holster. Off for a night out with friends well done, Harry

waist

bloody Fenton.

The helicopter had been over at last light, and Vabid Hossein had

gone

g after it

into the water at the first sound of its approach. Lon

had

the

disappeared he had returned to the marsh shore. He lay in

darkness

in the depth of the cover.

e policemen who watched the marsh, from the village side, on the

Th

higher ground of Hoist Covert and East Sheep Walk, had been replaced by

fresh men, and he had noted their positions.

The harrier was close to him but he could not see it, could only hear its movements as it scratched in the ground for the last scraps of meat.

The girl had come to the rendezvous point in the late afternoon,

bringing food and ointments for the bruising. She had been

withdrawn,

subdued. When he had told her what she should do the next day, she rgued.

hadn't a

was curled up on his side in the bramble thicket to keep the weight He

.

of his body off the bruising

The skin was bared at his waist and

hip,

and he could feel the soothing cool of the ointments.

He'd thought

she

o smooth on the ointments herself and he'd refused her.

wanted t

He

could not allow himself to be dependent on a woman. He heard the

f the bird and tried to shut from his memory the softness

sounds o

of

her fingers, seeking instead to recall the sight and touch and feel of

, who was alone in their bed in the house at Jamaran..

Barzin

. Each

time he summoned the image of her and the touch of her hands, the

image

dissolved and was replaced always it was her fingers, the girl's...

He

.

called to the bird

The bird was his truest friend, and would not corrupt him. It did 308

not

challenge him, was his equal. His love of it did not make him weak.

When it was finished and he was home, he would never talk to Barzin about the bird. She would not understand. He was alone; he was in darkness; he was sodden wet from immersing himself in the water,

sucking his air through the reed tube he had fashioned, when the

helicopter had circled overhead. He spoke soft, gentle words to the bird, hushed so as not to frighten it, told it what he was planning to

do.

Vahid Hossein shifted slightly, so that he could reach out with his hand beyond the tangle of thorns. The bird pecked at it as if he

might

have held a last piece of rabbit flesh... A lack of patience had caused him to make mistakes: trying to break into the house without

sufficient

preparation; taking the assault rifle... He criticized the bird for its

laziness it should hunt, it was strong enough now... He should have taken the rocket launcher, it would be the RPG-7 next time, he told the

bird. His fingers found the neck and crown of the bird's head and smoothed the

feathers. He

silky

hoped it would hunt in the dawn light

and that he would see its power and beauty as it dived to kill.

He trusted the bird as his friend.

They sat at a corner table.

Frank Perry was drunk.

"What did I do?"

The restaurant had cleared, and he had taken on a drunk's aggression.

"Will some bugger tell me what I did?"

The principal was in the angle of the corner, his wife was to the

right

of him and the detective to the left, with a clear view to the door.

Markham had his back to the room. The evening was a disaster, he

thought, of titanic proportions.

Perry snatched at the bottle and poured again.

309

he bloody right to know what I did."

"I've t

e

On

of the cars was out at the front with its driver, but its passenger o the glass door.

sat with his gun across his knees close t

The other

r was at the rear of the car-park, covering the outer entrance to

ca

the

kitchens. A policeman was sitting by the swing doors through which the

had brought the French food. The customers who had been

waiters

there

late party had stampeded in, seven of them, at three tables,

when the

fed themselves, gulped their drinks, paid up and were long

had stuf

ne.

go

e wine, the most expensive on the list. Drops

Perry swilled th

dribbled

his mouth and ran on his jaw.