sapped the muscle power in his legs. There would be plenty of groups ready to stand in an orderly queue for the chance to bid big money at any auction if a pair of Crusaders were up for grabs. Orange suits were the uniform for the camera shows where poor bastards pleaded for their lives and rubbished their politicians’ policies: the jihadists put them always in the same colour as the Americans’ prisoners wore at Guantanamo, as if that legitimised the killing. The ‘haircut’ wasn’t a short back and sides but the head wrenched back and the throat exposed so that the blade had an easier cut… and the same bloody camera would be running. The bastards in Luton and the West Midlands, Bradford and the north-west, who lived in the mean terraces and who – between their prayer sessions – flitted between the Internet sites that showed the beheadings, would likely get a hard-on if they had a fuzzy view of Foxy Foulkes’s head going back and the flash of the knife… Damned if it was him who was going to stop first, and he didn’t know how far they had still to travel to the frontier. The symbols and numbers on the GPS were blurred with the sweat dribbling off his forehead into his eyes.
They stayed in the lee of the bund, and there was a toppled battle tank ahead. His feet sloshed in water, and his stride was shorter. It was only the third hour and there might be another three to the border, then two more at least to where they would make the hide. He wore his gillie gear, and the bit that covered his head and face. A ‘gillie’ was a man who held the rods for the gentry on a salmon river, or guided marksmen towards deer; they’d been called up in the Great War from the estates to match the Prussian snipers with their skill in concealment, their knowledge of the elements and cover, and they’d developed their own suits, which gave them greater protection from searching eyes and lenses. The camouflage was good for the mud and dirt wall of the bund, but poor in the reeds. He listened for a gasp behind him – exhaustion, at the limit – but heard nothing.
Should have concentrated. Had the orange suit in his head and a man – himself – pleading to a lens for mercy. Guys were behind with rifles and one had a knife. He went by the tank. Its body was intact and he couldn’t see the entry hole of an armour-piercing missile but one of the tracks was broken. It would have been a mine, then an internal explosion and fire. The plate on the turret was rusted by the wind and dark from the fire. It could have happened thirty years ago and they might still be inside. Thieves would have stripped the interior, the wristwatches and jewellery from the dead crew, if they were salvageable, but would have left the bodies. The thoughts of the jumpsuits and then the rotting dead brought him back to Ellie.
A car’s wheels on the gravel, its door slamming. A key in the lock, her coming in.
Him: ‘Hi, darling, where’ve you been?’
Her hesitating, then: ‘Up to see Tash – didn’t I tell you I was going?’
‘Do I know Tash?’
‘Course you do. She used to work with me. You never listen, love. Course I told you.’
‘Made it home earlier than I’d thought…’ He’d moved to kiss her, but she’d averted her mouth and he’d just caught the back of her neck, but he’d smelt the perfume, lovely scent. He couldn’t see her face.
A sort of distant voice: ‘I came back through Wootton Bassett, love, and got held up. They were bringing home one of the soldiers. The traffic was stopped. I couldn’t go anywhere. I watched. They’re all heroes, aren’t they? His coffin had the flag on it. The Legion was there. Everyone stood to attention. Old blokes had medals on. There was a family with flowers, people crying, loads of them. It was for a real hero, fantastic.’
He’d said, ‘Well, love, I’m not a hero but I negotiated the motorway all the way up from the far west and…’
It was a poor effort at a joke. She’d rounded on him and the rant had started. ‘You don’t bloody listen, do you? I’m talking about heroes; the bravest of the brave. Real men. It’s about sacrifice – a man told me that at the petrol station. Giving their lives for us. He called it ‘‘paying the ultimate price’’. That’s nothing to make some stupid remark about.’
And there had been a slammed door. The bloody irony of it. He was slogging through mud at the edge of a bund, had a bergen on his back and a gillie suit that about suffocated him, and he was doing hero stuff. His throat was parched, and he was dehydrating, and they’d not allowed him to send a decent text. Irony was cold comfort.
Two trucks had come off the bund and gone engine first down the sheer slope. Their bonnets were in the water. Maybe they’d been bulldozed off to make way for more tanks. The water was stagnant, and the smell was bad. He retched, and had to step further into the water until it was lapping his knees. He saw three legs of a creature stuck upright, and wondered where the fourth was. The carcass was of a water buffalo, and it was about fucking landmines. He was swaying. The heat and smell were destroying him. He started to sink.
‘It’s not the promenade at Bognor,’ a voice behind him mocked. ‘Shift it.’
He must have opened his hand, let it slip. The stink of the animal clogged his nose. He scrabbled for it, couldn’t find it. The weight of the bergen seemed to pull him back.
His voice croaked: ‘Give me a hand, Badger.’
‘You a passenger, Foxy?’
‘A hand.’
‘Want me to lead? That it? Do a donkey’s job?’
‘I want to stop. Rest.’
‘We have to get there before dark. That’s what the boss lady said.’
‘A drink, and some help.’
‘Say it properly, Foxy.’
‘Some help.’
‘Properly, Foxy.’
‘Please. Some fucking help, please.’
And his voice must have lifted. A flight of ducks lifted out of dried foliage on the far side of the lagoon, and he remembered what Alpha Juliet had said. He wondered, rambling, if they were Marbled or Ferruginous or White- headed Duck. A hand came under his arm. He felt himself propelled forward, and they rounded the sunken trucks, leaning behind the buffalo carcass.
With the hand in his armpit, the weight of the bergen lessened. They edged back under the bund. The mud seemed thinner now and the pace quickened. A water bottle was passed to him, and he swigged.
He couldn’t hide it. ‘Back there, I dropped the GPS. It sank. I lost it.’
No answer. Not even a look that killed. He passed the bottle back. He thought they were heading in the right direction.
The bloody irony of it. When could he have refused, stepped back smartly and walked away? The opportunities were never available for little people like Joe ‘Foxy’ Foulkes…
She was still in bed, alone. The central heating had failed in her workplace of the last two years, Naval Procurement in Bath, and the buildings on the hills south of the city were as little ‘fit for purpose’ as the communal boiler system. They’d shivered all through yesterday, and the decision had been taken to close down until the problems were fixed.
She heard, below the bedroom, the front gate squeal. It needed oiling. She’d asked Foxy to do it twice, reminded him only last week. A vehicle swung into the drive. Ellie got up, shivered, remembered she’d turned the heating up last night to twenty – Foxy didn’t like that, and said sixteen was high enough. But Foxy wasn’t there… She’d had the text.
There were footsteps on the gravel, and two men’s voices. One was by the front door, the other beyond the gate. She hooked on her dressing-gown and parted the curtains. A man was leaning on her gate and his car half blocked the lane. Her eyes tracked across the drive, and there was Foxy’s car. The bell rang.
She had had the text two mornings before: Hi, love. In a hurry – have to be away, work, don’t know how long. Verboten to phone. Luvya Foxy. She had rung his mobile eight, ten, twenty times, but it was switched off.
She went downstairs. It was a decent cottage, in a country lane in a village outside the Wiltshire garrison town of Warminster, pretty with climbing roses over the porch, wisteria on the front walls, small mullion windows, a garden, three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a new kitchen she’d chosen. When they’d met, she’d been coming out of a divorce, with most of her savings gone in legal fees. She’d probably have ended up in a studio flat, if Foxy hadn’t offered her the lift down from the north-west. No way she could have afforded a chocolate-box cottage in the country. She had something to be grateful to Foxy for, but over the last two years that ‘something’ had become vague – almost out of sight since she’d met Piers.
She opened the door. The man wore a white shirt, a chauffeur’s style black tie, probably with an elastic band
