lochans that held the small brown trout, and the glens that were home to the plovers and wheat ears and curlews. Ahead lay an unfamiliar terrain.
Andy Chalmers came south, to track a man.
Chapter Fourteen.
He was into Thames House early, had limped from a photo-development kiosk to the building, shown his temporary accreditation at reception and hobbled into the third-floor work area. His feet were blistered from a long day's walking; the deep bath and the salts in it hadn't lessened the pain.
Duane Littelbaum had walked, the previous day, right round the Tower of London the Jewel Tower, the White Tower, Traitor's Arch, the grass-centred square where the state's enemies had been beheaded, and all the places of death and imprisonment. Once he'd giggled, attracted attention, because he'd wondered why his Saudi friends hadn't bought the whole damned place lock, stone and axe and transferred it to Riyadh. He had gone round on a tour, led by a costumed guide, then gone round again, on his own, and taken a whole roll of film. From the Tower of London he had walked to St. Paul's Cathedral, then hiked through the Sunday empty streets towards the Palace and Parliament. When he was half dead, and on the third film for Esther, he had weakened and taken a taxi back to the embassy's service flat and the bath.
A probationer told him that his office in Saudi Arabia had called, that he should ring back. The young man fixed the secure link for him because Duane Littelbaum was adept at demonstrating technological incompetence when the situation necessitated. He listened to the distant, tinny, concerned voice.
Mary-Ellen bur bled at him, asking about his domestic arrangements, and he wondered whether she was missing him.
'It's been hellish hot here, Duane, 110 plus Fahrenheit, and the cooling system in here's zapped again, it's awful. One of the visa-section guys went out in the parking lot, Saturday, and cracked an egg on the paving to see if he could fry it. He couldn't, the egg dehydrated. Seriously…'
He saw Cathy Parker come in. She had a bounce in her walk. She stopped in front of Markham's door and scribbled through the writing on the paper stuck to the door. She wrote, boldly, DAY FIVE.
'What I thought you should know, Duane, we had a briefing, at short notice, from the Agency people. There was a proper fracas about me being admitted in place of you. Was I cleared for a briefing from the Central Intelligence goddamn Agency? Ambassador, heads of section, and me. They are such seriously pompous people. Anyway…'
She sat beside him and laid a closed envelope on the table.
'You still there, Duane? Look, the guy said that the Saudi intelligence people admitted to him that the 'outsider hired guns', you know what I mean, came in during the last Ha]], with all the pilgrims, and are still in place inside the Magic Kingdom. Also the Army's come clean and said that four believe me four 81mm mortars have been stolen from one of their bases up north. How can you defend against that sort of scenario? A dump truck pulls up on the median just outside of a major enclave of ours, the tarp is pulled back, the rounds fly, and the Agency say they could have chemicals in them… and the Agency have gotten the name of your pal, Duane, A is for Anvil, away now but coming back… The commercial attache you know, that lanky idiot had to be told why one man was so important, why they'd wait for one man's return before launching. He seemed to think that quality men, like Anvil, came off a production line as if they were General Motors products. He was put right. When Anvil comes back it's time to go into the shelters, that's what the Agency people are saying. There's real fear here, those mortars and the name of Anvil. It sort of, kind of, makes you cold…'
Beside him, Cathy Parker pulled two photographs out of the envelope. He saw a young man holding a Kalashnikov rifle at a roadblock of Revolutionary Guards, and the picture was lifted away. The second photograph showed an older man in combat fatigues with his back to the water and t1~e reed-banks. She reached again into the envelope.
'I came away from that briefing and, I tell you, I was quite spooked. Well, that's it. I'll meet you Wednesday night off the flight oh, sorry, how's it going? Nowhere? I'll cook you supper Wednesday night. Would you have done better to stay here? There's someone at the door.
'Bye.'
He replaced the receiver. A slow smile was spreading across Cathy Parker's face. She took a blown-up picture from the envelope. He recognized immediately the work of computer enhancement, the ageing process, a fattening at the face, a thickening at the neck, more lines at the eyes, shorter hair with bleached, greying, thinner lips. She took a pen from the table and wrote, in big capital characters, the place of birth, Tehran, the date of birth, 28.7.1962, the name, only the goddamn name, Vahid Hossein. He gazed at it, then at her and into the brightness of her eyes. He kissed her on the mouth, kissed her hard.
What they would have noticed, everyone else in the work area, Cathy Parker kissed him back, lip to lip.
Fenton was gathering up his coat' saying he had a train to meet, but he paused long enough to lead the applause, and to call for a copy, post haste, to be sent to Geoff Markham.
Duane Littelbaum stared down at the face, at a stranger who had become familiar, and could still feel the taste of Cathy Parker's wicked, groping tongue.
'Why isn't he coming?' Sam Carstairs howled.
His mother, distracted and trying to put on her makeup for the day in the solicitors' offices, told him not to worry his head with such things.
'He's my best friend. Why isn't he coming to school?' the child bellowed.
His father, trying angrily to put the papers together that he'd been working on the previous evening, told him it was none of his business.
'If he isn't ill, why isn't he coming to school?' In a tantrum, little
Sam started to rip pages from the book they'd bought him only the week before, and stamped on them.
If Emma hadn't caught his arm, Barry would have hit his son. The row had gone on since the child had woken and sensed the tension. It was convenient for neither of them to take Sam into Halesworth for school. Emma, the legal executive, was in court that day with the senior partner, and Barry had the annual sales conference. It was the sort of day when they could have relied upon Meryl Perry's help: she was always prepared, with a smile, to alter the schedule of the shared school-run. Sam and Stephen had always been close friends, good for each other. Barry grabbed the child by the collar of his school coat and frog marched him to the car. Emma had said her job was as important as his; because of the row she'd be late meeting her senior partner, and he'd be bloody late at the conference. He put Sam into the back of his Audi, then ran back to the house because he'd forgotten, damn it, his briefcase.
Emma was throwing on her coat in the hall.
'We've done the right thing, haven't we?'
'What on earth do you mean?'
'With Frank and Meryl.' Until that moment, through all the weekend, neither had spoken of it, as if it were forbidden territory.
'They must be so isolated, without friends.'
'Their fault, not mine.'
'You don't think that we should make a gesture?'
'What did she call me? A second-rate rat? What sort of gesture do I make in response to that?'
'I suppose you're right.' She touched her hair in front of the mirror.
'Of course I'm right.'
'Please, tell Sam in the car why they're not our friends any longer. He doesn't understand, hasn't a clue, why he's lost his best friend. Please do it, Barry.'
'You wait, a week after they've gone we'll have forgotten they were ever here.'
He set the alarm, she locked the house, and they ran for their cars, to live their busy lives.
Ten minutes earlier, Geoff Markham had gone out into the parking area behind the town's police station. The arrival time had been given them in the crisis centre and others had drifted after him to stand in the light rain, and wait.
