damnedest to batter the other to the canvas. The bout had been brutal and merciless, and he'd hated it.
He took back the picture, and they walked away, following the map's trail.
Chalmers unpicked a piece of cotton thread from a strand of barbed-wire topping a garden fence and said that the man wore a camouflage tunic.
Where the path narrowed, Chalmers stopped, hunched down and studied the ground beside the path's mud. Half hidden by squashed nettles, a boot print was just visible. Chalmers said the man was size eleven, and added casually that he was hurt, handicapped.
They were beside the river. Chalmers unhooked the twine from the dogs' throats but cooed softly to them. They stayed at his heel.
Ahead were the marshes. The grey cloud was low on the reed-beds. The rain spat on their faces. Chalmers gestured to his right, a contemptuous short motion of his arm, and Markham saw the movement of the policemen in bushes away on higher ground. The marshes stretched ahead to the mist-line and the far, dull shape of the trees. There was the slow thunder of the waves on shingle beyond the sea wall.
'Get lost,' Chalmers growled.
'When'll I see you?'
'Some time, when I'm ready. Go away.'
Geoff Markham walked back down the path alongside the river. He turned once, looked round, and the path behind him was empty.
Bill Davies flushed the downstairs lavatory, and came back into the hall. Nothing for him to do but drink coffee and ruminate on the catastrophe of the evening before, which he'd been doing all morning. Perry had been looking like chilled death when Davies had come in first thing to relieve Blake and was now pacing the living room. Meryl was in the kitchen, quiet, and she'd only been out the once, to hang her washed dress on the line. Paget had been with her, scanning the bottom fence all the time she'd pegged it up, and the rest of the clothes from the machine. He heard a sudden clatter of sound from the kitchen and knew that with a numbed mind and clumsy fingers she'd dropped a plate, broken it. He glanced out through the window, through the new net curtains. There was a spit of rain misting the glass but he saw the tall, wiry man's clerical collar. He moved aside the curtain for a better glance. Mr. Hackett's name hadn't been scratched off the list by the kitchen telephone.
It was reflex, not thought through.
He spoke on his radio to the hut, said he'd be outside, to the front of the house.
He went out into the light rain. He ran across the green, past the new tree and the new post, towards the clergyman.
'Excuse me.'
The man stopped in mid-step, turned, the wind catching his greying hair.
'Excuse me are you Mr. Hackett?'
'He is me.' A piping voice and a thin smile of greeting.
'Please, have you a moment?'
'A moment for what?'
'I'm with Frank and Meryl Perry.'
The caution clouded his face.
'Which means you're a policeman, which means you're an armed policeman. Why would you want a moment of my time?'
Why? Because Frank Perry was told last night of his responsibility in the death of a coach load of Iranian military scientists. Because he had drunk two bottles of wine and been sick twice. Because he and Meryl were at home alone, and needed a friend.
'I just thought, if you'd the time it's rough for them. A visit from a friend would help.'
The clergyman took a step forward.
'I have appointments. People are expecting me.'
Bill Davies caught his arm.
'What they need, please, is for someone to show them some charity.'
'Be so kind as to take your hand off me. Another time, perhaps…'
Davies's hand was shaken off, and the clergyman quickened his stride.
'You are a leader in this community, Mr. Hackett.'
'I doubt it, but I do have a filled appointments diary.'
'Your example is important. Please, go and ring the bell, go and smile and make some small-talk. Better still, walk up this road with Meryl Perry, with Frank we'll protect you. Show everybody here that they have your support.'
'Another day, perhaps. But I cannot promise.'
'They need you.'
'There are many who need me. I don't know your name and I do not need to, but we did not ask for your guns to be brought into our community. We did not ask for our children and our women to be endangered. We are not a part of whatever quarrel Frank Pejry is enmeshed in. We owe him nothing. He should go what he owes us is his departure from here. I have a wider responsibility to the majority. I do not condone the ostracism of this family, but I cannot condemn it. But we are a God-fearing and law-abiding community, and I doubt that observance of God's teaching and the rules of society have brought Perry to his present situation. In your search for a friend to Perry, I suggest that you look elsewhere.'
'Thank you, Mr. Hackett, for your Christian kindness.'
'Good day.'
Bill Davies walked slowly back to the house.
The Italian owner of the restaurant, from Naples, eyed the many-layered stomach of the German and murmured, with quiet discretion to Fenton, 'The full menu, Mr. Fenton, not the two-course luncheon special?'
They were eased into their seats, and immediately the German ordered decisively, as if to feed himself for the rest of the week. Fenton's guest was from the BfV, attached to the embassy, an old hand at counter-terrorism, and a friend of sorts. As was his habit, Fenton set an agenda. He was confused, he admitted, and in search of enlightenment. The Foreign Office preached appeasement of Iran, the Israelis demanded they be beaten with lump hammers, the Islamic movement claimed there was American-inspired unwarranted hostility towards the Muslim world. Where lay the truth?
The German talked and ate, drank and smoked.
'So, you have one of their excrement loose on your territory otherwise it would be sandwiches and Perrier in your office. You wish to know how seriously to take that threat. My government, as you well know because you have leaked your criticisms, has taken a conciliatory attitude towards Iran, has rescheduled debts, has given out visas, has pushed for stronger trade links, and has still provided the venue for Iranian assassins to meet their targets. It won us nothing, so we have considerable experience of their tactics. That is what I should talk about our experience of their murder tactics?'
A heaped plate of antipasti was followed by a wide, filled bowl of pasta with fungi. The German left his cigarette burning. The smoke made Fenton's eyes smart.
'They aim to be near, to kill at close quarters. But the beginning the beginning is from the top in Tehran, from the peak of government, and the authorization for the allocation of hard-currency funding and the provision of weapons through diplomatic pouches. A trusted man is appointed and he will be backed by local sympathizers, but he takes the responsibility for success or failure. He will have no contact point with his embassy, there is the creed of deniability. He will not be helped by diplomats or intelligence officers. Our experience is that the trusted man is most hard to capture or kill. It is the sympathizers who reconnoitre and drive the cars who sit in our prison cells. It is a great triumph to take or eliminate the trusted man if you can do that, you will have my sincerest congratulations.'
When the steak was brought, the German took the majority of the vegetables, the greater part of the potatoes, and lit another cigarette.
'What is he like the trusted man? I tell you, very frankly, he is the same as the people in our Rote Armee Faktion, the same as the people in your Irish groups. The less you know of him, the more impressive you will believe him to be. Our ignorance lifts his reputation. He is dedicated, fanatical, he is skilled, he is prepared for martyrdom, he is elusive that is what ignorance tells us.'
