church, put money in charity boxes, when you next volunteer for good works and good causes, think of what you did tonight to Meryl. But, the cruelty doesn't work with me…'

She could not hold back the tears.

'You see, you don't frighten me. I'm not frightened of yobs with stones. Where I was, for what I did, if I'd been caught there, I'd have been hanged until dead. That's not a trap under the gallows, and quick, but a rope from an industrial crane, and it's being hoisted up, and it's kicking and strangling and slow. There's not a few drunks watching, not a few cowards, there's twenty thousand people. You understand? Being hanged from a crane frightens me, not you… She lay on the floor beside the door of the airing-cupboard, clutched her boy and squeezed her hands over his ears.

'I bought some time. I'm told I delayed a programme for the development of Weapons of Mass Destruction. The warheads would have carried chemicals or microbiological agents, might have been nerve gases and might have been something like anthrax. You, of course, wouldn't have known the people targeted by those warheads. They would have been Saudis or Kuwaitis or the Gulf people. They might have been Israeli Jews. When you're so selfish, when you live complacently in an island of your own making, you wouldn't think of the millions of other souls who exist around you. Are you happy?'

She heard the hoarseness of his voice.

'There is a man who has been sent to kill me. He is somewhere, out there, in the darkness. I know very little of him but I know about his society, his culture. He is a Muslim, a child of the Islamic faith… He would not understand you. From his faith and his culture, he would believe that my community has closed ranks around me, not isolated me. I can find more love for him, the man sent to kill me, than for you, my so-called friends.'

She heard his last shout into the night.

'Are you there? Are you listening?'

The door slammed behind him. The key was turned, the bolt rammed home.

Chapter Sixteen.

He felt puny, insignificant and unimportant.

Geoff Markham walked beside the stream that wound ahead of him between the sea and the Southmarsh. Behind him it skirted the village before drifting inconsequentially into Northmarsh. The wind was up and had blown away the rain.

He was unimportant because he had not been telephoned the night before. He had been killing time at a piano recital twelve miles away, in another town; he had sat in ignorance at the back of a half-empty, draughty Baptist hall. His mobile telephone, of course, had been on, but the call had not come. A trifle of life would have been injected into the performance if his telephone had bleeped, but it had not… Davies had told him, an hour earlier that morning, of the night's events. He had seen the scorched grass where the milk bottle had ignited and seen the smoked slivers. Near to the new tree was the small patch of burned ground where the gas canister had detonated. Only an unimportant junior liaison officer would not have been telephoned. Davies had told him what was going to happen that day not asked~l him for his opinion, but told him. He had stormed away.

He was unimportant, he realized, because he did not carry a gun. The guns were what counted now. He was drawn towards

Southmarsh. The guns ringed the marshland, just as they were around and inside the house. It hurt him to feel the minimality of his importance. And no communication, either, from the little stinking bastard with the dogs. Markham didn't know where he was, what he did, what he'd seen and couldn't call him for fear of compromising his position.

There were two letters in his pocket. They were not typed up, or remotely ready for sending, but they were drafted in his handwriting. He thought, later, he would go to the police station and find a typewriter and envelopes. He had drafted the letters after the recital, back at his guest-house accommodation. Fenton had said, down the phone, fifty minutes earlier, 'We're not a marriage-guidance operation, Geoff. If she wants to go, then I'm not going to lose sleep over it. But he stays, whatever. If you have to chain him to the floor, he stays.' He walked towards where the little verminous bastard was, not that he would see him, but where he would breathe the same air.

The two drafted letters were in his pocket.

Dear Mr. Cox, I write to inform you of my resignation from the Service. I am taking up a position with a merchant bank in the City. I would like to express to you, to Mr. Fenton, to colleagues, my appreciation of the many kindnesses that have been shown me. My future employers wish me to start with them at the earliest possible date and I look for your co-operation in that matter.

Sincerely, and

Dear Sirs, I have received your letter setting out my terms of employment and find them most satisfactory. Accordingly, I have resigned from my current employers by the same post, and have requested the earliest possible date of release. I much look forward to joining your team and will advise you, soonest, of when that will be.

Sincerely,

Once they were typed up they could go in the afternoon post, and then Geoff Markham would no longer be unimportant. He walked on the path, turned a corner and could see, past a wild clump of bramble, the mass of the reed-banks, the dark water channels, and a ruined windmill that had no sails. The bright light played on the dead reed-tips, and the birds flew above the muddy banks.

'I wouldn't go any further. If you don't want a bollocking from a police thug, I'd stop right there.'

He spun. To the right, a few yards from him, the man sat on a weathered bench. Markham recognized him, but couldn't place him. A dapper little man, thinning hair and a nervous smile, with binoculars hanging from his neck.

'Quiet, isn't it? Wonderful. But there's a policeman ahead with a vile tongue and a big gun.' There was a chuckle, like that of a teenage girl but from the soft full lips.

'I'm watching the harrier. It's a joy to behold…'

The man pointed. Markham saw the bird, cartwheeling in awkward flight. He squinted to see it better. It was more than half a mile away, and its colours merged with the reed-beds. It was far beyond the windmill, over the heart of the marsh. He could see swans, geese and ducks on the water, but this was the only bird that flew and, strangely, its motion was that of a clumsy dancer.

'Incredible bird, the marsh harrier it migrates each spring from west Africa to here. It would have been hatched on Southmarsh, and then in the first autumn of its life it flies all the way back to Senegal or Mauritania for the winter. Then, come our spring, it returns. Comes back to us. I find that wonderful. Two thousand miles of flight and our little corner of the universe is where it returns to.'

He remembered where he had seen the man. He had bought a sandwich two days earlier at his shop. Dominic Evans's name was over the door. That morning, Davies had given him, snarled them, the names of those who had been in the half-shadow, who had not intervened he was one of them.

'It comes back to us. Its trust makes for a huge responsibility. It can rely on our care and kindness.'

'A pity, Mr. Evans, that Frank and Me~yl Perry can't rely on that well of care and kindness.'

'What's remarkable this bird came back last week, and it was injured. It had been shot. I didn't thiril when I saw it last week that it could survive. It's flying, not quite at full strength yet, but it's hunting and it's getting there. It's almost a miracle.'

'I said, Mr. Evans, that it was a pity Frank and Meryl Perry cannot rely on your care and kindness.'

'That's not called-for.'

'It's the truth.'

'What do you know of ultimate truths?'

'I know that you were there last night, one of those who stood back and let the mob have its bloody vicious fun.'

'You feel qualified to make a judgement?'

'I make a judgement on those who skulk at the back, don't have the guts to come forward.'

'That's mighty high talk.'

'I'm talking about cowards who know what is right, and stay silent.'

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