camera, she gently rolled the tiny body over. The back of the baby's head had disappeared. The image trembled for a moment, the cameraman twitching with the focus as he closed the shot around the tiny corpse.
Faces again, Pompey faces, fists punching the air as the column of protesters swept across a dual carriage way Behind the wheel of a car, stalled in the waiting queue, a young man in a suit was reading the back page of the News, oblivious to everything.
'Incredible.'
Eadie stepped back from the PC and gave J-J's shoulder a squeeze. The first instalment of Al-Jazeera footage had come in half an hour ago, pumped down from London on the broadband link. Poking his head around Eadie's door, J-J had signalled its arrival, but she'd been too busy with pictures of her own to spare the time for a look. Now, as J-J played her the rest of the news coverage, she realised how priceless the footage would be. This was the Arab view of the war, tens of millions of men and women on the receiving end of Bush's hi-tech onslaught. Against Apache gunships and cruise missiles, these people were practically defenceless. All they could do was hang on and pray.
The Americans and the British had promised them a bloodless war, liberation without tears, and here it was.
J-J was on his feet, stretching his arms back to ease the cramps. He planned to work through the evening, dos sing down in the sleeping bag when he got too tired. What he wanted was five minutes of tightly cut footage, something for Eadie to take to London and give to the Stop the War people, something to let them glimpse the possibilities of this kind of document. Eadie nodded, thumbs up. In a couple of days, she'd find the time to sort out a series of sound bites from Bush and Blair — White House press conferences, House of Commons speeches all the drivel about WMD and the imminent threat, all the fervent pledges that the allies had embarked on a moral crusade. 'Sometimes the tough decision are the right decisions,' she remembered Blair saying. Just how comforting was that when your baby had just been blown apart?
Joyce had been to the restaurant before. Friday night, the place was packed but the waiter she knew found her a reserved table at the back.
The people who'd booked it were half an hour late. Too bad if they still showed up.
'They do scrummy chicken tagine.' Joyce surrendered her dripping raincoat. 'Dunno how you feel about North Africa, but the couscous is to die for. Sheriff?'
Faraday was still on his feet, gazing around at the sea of faces. Young couples, foursomes, conversations spiced with laughter and the chink of raised glasses. It seemed unreal, like the film he'd just watched, mysterious, inexplicable, remote. He shook his head the way you might try and adjust a badly tuned TV. This sense of detachment, of drift, was beginning to bother him.
'Sheriff?'
He turned his attention to Joyce and at last sat down. She was offering him a bowl of small, deep-fried objects in a nest of mint leaves. He wondered what they were.
'Call me Joe,' he muttered. 'Do you mind?'
He tried one of the balls. It tasted spicy.
'Falafel,' Joyce said helpfully. 'I can't believe you've never eaten this stuff. Sorry about the movie.'
'It was good. Unusual.'
'Yeah? So why did you go to sleep on me?'
Faraday said he didn't know. More to the point, while he'd never admit it, he didn't much care. More and more, these last couple of days, life was passing him by, a piece of theatre for which he'd neglected to buy a ticket. This sense of detachment could be rather wonderful, a sense that nothing really much mattered, but other times — like now he felt a stir of something that felt close to panic. What was he doing here? Why wasn't he at Eadie's place, sorting out the central heating?
What in God's name was happening to him?
'You want red or white?' Joyce was consulting the wine list.
'Neither. Water will be fine.'
'I can get you a cab back. Leave the car here.'
'Water.' It sounded peremptory, almost an order, not at all the way he'd meant it. Joyce had abandoned the wine list. She looked genuinely concerned.
'Joe? What's the matter?'
'Nothing. I'm sorry.'
'Tell me, honey. Pretend I know nothing about all this shit. Pretend I'm someone you just met. This is Casablanca, OK? We're in the same hotel. I'm happily married. You're shacked up with someone luscious.
No pressure. Just conversation.'
'AH what shit?'
'Tumbril. The office. Our little glee club. I know it's Friday night, Joe, but Tumbril's like rheumatism, isn't it? Gets in your bones. Won't let go.'
'You find that?'
'All the time. Constant damn ache. Doesn't respond to medication. You don't believe me? Then take a trip to the QA. That lovely Nick would back me to the hilt if he could only remember.'
'You've been up there?'
'Lunchtime. Guy's away with the fairies.'
'That wasn't Tumbril's fault.'
'No?' She leaned forward across the table, V-necked cashmere sweater, enormous breasts bursting for attention. 'You should have seen him the past couple of weeks. Whoever ran him over did him a favour. The way I read it, Nick was a nervous breakdown waiting to happen, the real thing, totally blown away. Couldn't concentrate, couldn't hold a conversation, couldn't make a decision. Talk to him most days, you had to check he was still sentient.' She paused, her hand closing over Faraday's. 'Am I getting through here?'
For the first time, Faraday sensed something he recognised, something familiar in the torrent of noise he kept trying to tune out.
'That's what his partner says. You know Maggie?'
'Sure.' Joyce helped herself to a falafel. 'Pretty girl. Teacher.
Met her twice. Mad as a coot. Goes with the job.' She looked up at him. 'So how come they saddled you with Tumbril? Only from where I'm standing, it wasn't an act of kindness.'
'You think I'm making a mess of it?'
'Other way round, sheriff.'
'It's that obvious?'
'Didn't I just say so?' She gave his hand a squeeze, then reached for her napkin. 'Tell me about that boy of yours. Blew it, I hear.'
'Who told you that?'
'Doesn't matter. Our job, Joe, there's no such thing as secrets. My favourite DI's son goes A.W.O.L., launches a new career, becomes a drug baron, the world knows about it within seconds. We thrive on this stuff. We love it. Marty Prebble says it's ironic. Marty's big on irony.' She paused. 'So how is he?'
Faraday considered the question. The last day and a half he'd thought of little else.
'You want the truth? I haven't a clue. We've met a couple of times, bumped into each other, but he won't talk to me, won't communicate, won't even look at me.'
'Talking's tough, isn't it? Guy like him?'
'You know what I mean. You met the lad a while back. Nothing's changed since then. Normally, he's all over you. Now…' Faraday shrugged, wishing he'd said yes to the wine. 'He's just not there any more.'
'Not at home, not opening the door. Not to you, at least.'
'That's right.' Faraday gazed at her, surprised and hurt by the stab of the metaphor. 'Definitely not to me.'
'What about your lady friend? Is she any use?'
'She's closer to him than I am. Has been for months.'
'Sounds like robbery. Arrest her.'
Despite himself, Faraday laughed. When Joyce pushed a little further, he found himself telling her about Eadie, about Ambrym, about the protest march they'd been on back in February, about her commitment to her
