'Do you want to know?'
'Do I want to hear a string of snivelled excuses? Not particularly.'
'I am not proud of what happened.'
'Frank and Meryl Perry need someone from among you bastards to hold out the hand of friendship.'
'I don't know your name. You're another of the strangers who has invaded our little place. Till you came, we were just ordinary people living hidden and un achieving lives, we were like everybody else, everybody anywhere. We were not challenged… I don't know your name but, stranger, I am homosexual. Queer, got it? I live with my friend and I love him. But, I am discreet… I do not cause offence, I do not draw attention to myself. If I did then in this little place I would be labelled a pervert. I buy tolerance with my work as the village historian. I can tell you where the old shore-line was, and the old churches, and the old shipyard, all that stuff, but at least I take this place seriously. If I were blatant I would be ostracized… Yes, I should have spoken up for Frank and Meryl. I like them, but I'm a coward. Yes, I'm ashamed. So, yes, I go with the tide. But, it's like the sea and the history here. It makes for a sense of futility. Little gestures against the strength of the sea, over many centuries, have proved the worthlessness of man's efforts. We bow before the force of the inevitable.'
Markham stared out over the marshland, and the peace that settled on it.
'You won't be here when this is over, stranger. We'll be left to pick up the pieces, and you'll have moved your caravan on where you can make judgements on other ordinary people. Is it satisfying work? You sneer at me because I didn't, publicly, offer my hand in friendship to the Perrys. Let me tell you no, listen to me. Twice, in the night when I wouldn't be seen, I've put my coat on and determined to walk to Frank and Meryl's door, and each time I failed to find the courage. Will you tell them that I'm ashamed of my cowardice?'
'No,' Markham said icily.
He cursed himself for his cruelty. The man was gone, stumbling away. He wondered how he would have been if the challenge had faced him. The warm sun was on his face. Geoff Markham watched the flight of the bird and he had no sense of what was remarkable, what was a miracle.
'Do you know what, Barney?'
'What, Harry?'
'I think it's an away goal.'
'Come again.'
'I think the Yank's scored away from home.'
Harry Fenton and Barnaby Cox stood at their adjacent office doors. Duane Littelbaum, flushed, yawning, had his feet up on the central table, scanning a newspaper.
'What's that mean?'
'Got his leg over with Miss Prim Parker.'
'You sure?'
Cathy was at her place at the console. Her eyes were on her screen. She never looked up, didn't glance at the soles of his shoes.
'Look at her. You ever seen her so feminine? God, next she'll be wearing lipstick, mascara and eau-de- toilette. Ever seen her so becomingly coy, even shy? You noticed Geoff Markham's door, the number of the day on it? Just before you came in, she scratched out one day and wrote DAY SIX, and underneath she's put, 'The worm has turned,' and I haven't decrypted that cypher, but she and the Yank sniggered like kids. As an expe~enced, senior, dedicated intelligence officer, I'd say the evidence points to last night's naughtiness.'
'Not many been there before.'
'Last chap, so he said, who tried to get his arm up her skirt, that Adonis from D Branch, said she damn near broke it off at the elbow. Brennard claims he was there, admits she was so stressed out that she didn't know who he was. Well done, the Yank.'
'He's been useful, but I wouldn't want Mr. Littelbaum, or his people, to believe we are overly dependent on them… if you're with me. I wouldn't wish them to believe we're in their pocket, or not competent in our own theatre.'
A wolfish grin played at the sides of Harry Fenton's mouth.
'Our show, done quietly, yes?'
'You are, Harry, managing this matter?'
The grin vanished.
'Time will tell I live in hope.'
Davies brought him a mug of coffee.
Perry had lifted his plans out of the chest's bottom drawer in the sitting room and carried them into the dining room. He had asked Davies if he minded the intrusion and the detective had shaken his head. It was only a small job, a problem with the air filtration on the production line of an assembly plant in Ipswich. Davies had moved his machine-gun and the spare magazines across the blanket over the table to make room for him, then headed for the kitchen.
It was the first time that Frank Perry had taken out some work in a week. Only a small job, which wouldn't pay more than a thousand pounds, but it was his little gesture of defiance. He had noticed that Davies didn't ask before going to the kitchen to make coffee, and he thought the detective was at home now, comfortable, in their house.
Perry thanked him for bringing the coffee. Meryl was upstairs, packing.
She had slept alone.
Poring over the workshop plans, tracing the course of the filtration pipes, Perry reckoned out where the new motor should be placed, and what power it must have to create the necessary airflow down the pipes to the unit. There were two more consultancy jobs in the drawer, one larger than this and one smaller, and after that there was nothing. He was tapping out calculations and jotting the numbers while she packed.
The ceiling beams and floor planks of the old house creaked under her weight above him. She was in Stephen's room. He didn't know how much she intended to take, everything or the bare minimum. If she took everything, cleared the child's room of clothes and toys, then she was going for ever.
She had called Stephen in from the hut, and he'd come reluctantly his days were now split between the television and the hut. He'd noticed that, just as he had noticed that Davies was now more comfortable in the house. He had not asked how much she intended to take because he had not dared to hear the answer. The footfall moved above him.
She would be in the gloom of their bedroom. She had left the child on his own to pack his toys.
Perry heard the thud as she pulled down the biggest of the cases from the top of the wardrobe, and then another. He stared down, doggedly, at the plans for the new filtration unit.
'Are you all right, sir?'
'Why shouldn't I be?'
'Where's she going?'
'Haven't the faintest idea.'
'She has to go somewhere.'
'Her mother and father died in a coach crash, and she's never spoken of any relatives. She's no friends where she came from… We only have each other. We thought it was different.'
'Shall I book a hotel?'
'That would be best.'
'Where should the hotel be?'
'How the hell should I know?'
Davies slipped away, left him. Perry swore. He had made a bloody mistake, had missed a bloody decimal point. He ripped up the sheet of paper on which he'd written his calculations, threw the pieces to the carpet and started again… She'd be packing the blouse he'd bought for her last birthday, and the diamond cluster ring with a central sapphire that he'd given her last Christmas, and the underwear she'd shown him when she came home from Norwich three weeks ago; everything that mattered to her, and to him, would be going into the suitcases. He corrected the positioning of the decimal point. It was the principle that mattered. He would not surrender. Why did no one understand that he had to hold on to the principle?
Davies came back in. Perry saw the smudge of lipstick on his collar, the damp patch around it, and knew the detective had comforted her.
