‘Yes. Yes, I suppose so. I’ve got a bit of a tickle in my throat, but it’s not getting any worse.’
‘I think I might go up to my room and lie down.’
Frank raised a hand. ‘No, I don’t think –’ he stumbled over his words – ‘not yet.’
Geoff gave him a puzzled frown. ‘Why not?’
‘I – I think David and Natalia are up there.’ Frank felt himself blush. ‘Together.’
Geoff nodded his understanding, gave a sad little smile. ‘I wondered if something was going on there. Thanks for the warning.’ He frowned. ‘But I wouldn’t have thought –’ he looked at Frank intently – ‘listen, if we get to meet up with Sarah, David’s wife, you mustn’t say anything. He and Natalia – well, these things happen when everyone’s thrown together, under such a strain—’
‘I won’t say anything. I promise.’
Geoff sat back wearily in his chair. ‘I suppose I’d better stay down here for a while then.’
‘David and Natalia,’ Frank said. ‘His wife. They shouldn’t—’
‘Who are we to say?’
Frank looked down. ‘I don’t know.’
Geoff shook his head. ‘Only fifteen years ago you and I and David were at university. It was a different world then, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, it was.’
Geoff smiled. ‘Do you remember the day when we were all in this pub, and there was that idiot loudmouth from our college, I’ve forgotten his name now, arguing that Hitler only wanted to revive Germany’s national spirit, just wanted territories that were historically German and he was entitled to them—’
‘Carter,’ Frank said.
‘That’s right. And you said, “They’re not territories, they’re places where people live and it’s the people that matter.” I remember he just sat and stared at you. I think he was a bit surprised you’d answered him back.’
Frank said, ‘You remember that, after all this time?’
‘Oh, yes. I—’
Geoff broke off suddenly, at the sound of a tremendous crash from the front door. Frank turned, so fast he almost lost his balance, as another followed. Geoff looked at him, then threw open the door from the front room to the hall. Outside, in the hallway, Sean had come out of the lounge and stood, a gun in his hand, facing the front door. As they watched it splintered and flew open. Three men burst in from the fog, pistols drawn. Two were uniformed Auxiliary Police. One was carrying a sledgehammer and the other a pistol. The third was in plain clothes and to his horror Frank recognized Syme, the tall, thin policeman from the hospital. He had a gun too. Sean fired at the Auxiliary who had the pistol, a tremendous noise in the confined space. The policeman toppled back onto the other two, unbalancing them, blocking the doorway, blood gushing from his neck. The plain-clothes man, though, had time to fire at Sean, and the big Irishman went down with a crash, his body hitting the floor with an impact that shook the boards.
Frank stood paralysed. As the two intruders struggled with the body of their dead colleague in the doorway, Geoff grabbed his arm and pushed him towards the open doorway of the lounge. Ben stood there, also holding a gun. There must have been guns in the table drawers. Behind him Eileen stared through the door at her husband’s body, eyes wide with horror. Frank glanced at Sean’s face; the blue eyes whose gaze had scared him were still and dead now.
There was a clattering on the stairs and David and Natalia appeared, running down, David frantically buttoning up his clothes. In any other circumstances it would have looked ridiculous. Natalia, too, was holding a gun. Syme and the other Auxiliary were in the hall now and both raised their firearms but Natalia fired first, Ben following from the doorway a second after. They missed Syme but Natalia hit the other Auxiliary in the arm. He yelled and staggered. Just outside the house, they heard the sound of a police siren.
Geoff had Frank inside the lounge now. Natalia and David followed and David banged the door shut.
‘Out the back!’ Eileen pointed at Frank, her voice a loud scream. Geoff grabbed Frank’s hand and pulled him towards the kitchen. The others heaved the heavy table in front of the door to the hall, blocking it, just before the plain-clothes man threw himself against it. Other police were coming and it would not hold for long. Eileen shouted, ‘Go!’
Ben opened the back door, slowly and carefully. Outside, nothing but a bank of fog. There could have been a dozen more armed policemen out there, but there was nowhere else to go. Other policemen had arrived through the front now, and were throwing themselves against the lounge door. Frank looked back at Eileen. She smiled weakly, then reached into her dress, between her breasts. She pulled something out and put it in her mouth. Frank had a momentary glimpse of her body convulsing.
The back door was half open, Ben peering round it, gun in hand. He waved to the others to stand back. Frank braced himself for another rush of blue uniforms from the backyard. But there was nothing, just the fog. Ben took a deep breath and stepped outside, gun raised in both hands. David and Natalia followed, then Geoff hauled Frank out, too, slamming the back door shut to cut off the light. He had taken the key from the side of the door and turned it, locking it.
They were out in the yard, in the dark and fog. There was a flash of light from somewhere and a bang. Beside Frank, Geoff gave a cry and toppled over, letting go of Frank’s hand. He lay still on the ground, blood spreading across his chest. He twitched violently once and then was still. Ben and Natalia both fired blindly back into the murk, and Frank heard the sound of someone falling, cursing and swearing. There must have been only one policeman round the back. Then Ben had Frank’s hand, pulling him through the fog, across the yard. Frank cried out, ‘Geoff!’
‘He’s dead!’ Ben said. He hauled Frank across the little yard; a brick wall loomed up. There was a big metal dustbin beside it. David helped Natalia onto it. She climbed over the wall. David followed. Behind them, they heard crashes at the back door.
‘Come on!’ Ben shouted at Frank. He climbed onto the wall, then reached down, took Frank under the arms and lifted him up. Frank grasped the wall, bracing himself to feel a bullet in his back, half hoping for it, but it didn’t come. From the top of the wall Ben fired back towards the house.
‘Fucking come on!’ Ben screamed in Frank’s ear. Then Frank was hauled bodily over the wall. He fell on wet cobbles with a crash that winded him. Ben and David pulled him up and half carried him down an alley, into a street that was just a choking yellow-grey mass of fog. More shots sounded, flashes in the gloom ahead. More police had been waiting in the street. Frank collided with the wall of the alley, grazing his arm. Ben had taken a grip on Frank’s other arm but it loosened as he fired again into the street. Everyone was just firing blindly, nobody could see. Frank heard a sound from behind him; more policemen and Syme, no doubt, climbing over the O’Sheas’ wall in hot pursuit.
Frank pulled away from Ben’s grasp. He was gripped by utter panic – the gunshots, the images of Sean and Geoff falling, Eileen’s body convulsing. They couldn’t save him, they were going to be captured as he had known they would be. He turned and ran away, blindly, into the fog.
ALL FRANK COULD HOLD IN his mind was to get away, disappear in the fog. He ran blindly, arms out in front of him. He felt a jolt up his spine; he had stepped from the kerb into the roadway without seeing it. Behind him he heard more shots, a police whistle. He half turned but already it was impossible to make out who was firing at whom; he saw vague moving shapes but a second later they disappeared. He reached the pavement on the other side, nearly tripping on the kerb, and stepped up, groping in front of him. He touched a wall, stumbled along, keeping his hand on walls and damp hedges so he didn’t wander back into the road. A police whistle sounded again a little further off. He reached a corner and turned, walking on until a bout of coughing brought him to a halt. The air stank. He leaned against a privet hedge, trying to get his breathing under control. More shots sounded, but further away now.
The house had been raided; the little boy from the neighbouring house must have betrayed them. The others were gone, probably dead – if they hadn’t been shot they would have taken their cyanide pills. At the thought a choking sob rose up in Frank’s throat.
He must keep walking, all night if he had to. If only he could see. When it got light visibility would be a bit better, though that meant it would be easier for them to find him. Thank God he hadn’t had his bedtime pills; at
