'The bastard's done a runner.
The~cacophony of voices filled the hallway.
'After all we've bloody done for him… Bloody put ourselves on the line for him… Sort of thanks you get from a selfish bloody bastard… What the fuck is he thinking of?'
Forgotten in the silence, the child shouted, 'Don't, don't you're his friends.'
They stood for a moment, heads hung, shamed.
Fenton said, into the telephone, 'So good to speak to you. Of course, I feel I know you although we've never met. Let's put that right. Lunch today, I think. I apologize if you've something in your diary but I promise you it would be worth your while to scratch it out. There's a nice little place off St. James's, on the right, third street up from Pall Mall, Italian one o'clock? Excellent. I've heard so much about you… What's it concern? Try remembering a man known as Frank Perry… One o'clock? I look forward to it hugely.'
The chance was given him by his God. The bird was above him, sometimes coming down into the reeds to perch and watch him, but always beyond his reach. One final chance was given him by his God, to take him to the Garden of Paradise. He thought of the great men who had gone before him, slipped from the mountain at Alamut, made long journeys, stalked their target, and he would meet them as an equal in the Garden of Paradise, and sweet-faced girls would wash the wounds on his body under trees of fruit blossom and take the pain from him. He was weak and could move only slowly. He had seen where the target had come down off the high pathway, and he had not seen him climb back. He knew where he would find him and prayed that he had the strength to take him.
He smelt the burning of the bodies as the flesh melted on the bones.
He heard the terror of the screams. He saw the women weeping.
He had been in their homes and they had cooked celebratory meals for him and their husbands.
Frank Perry jerked up his head from the ground.
'What's happened?'
'Nothing's happened,' the minder, Markham, whispered sourly.
'What about the tracker?'
'Don't know, haven't sight nor sound of him.'
'And for him, the hunter, is it just a job or does he care?'
'You wouldn't understand.'
'I understand what I did.'
'You were convenient they used you every inch of the way.'
'Does he care, the man out there, the man who killed Meryl?'
'He's professional, doing a job for his country, as we're doing a job for ours. As a person, he doesn't care.'
'Dying for his country?'
'Let me tell you something, Mr. Perry, that might help you to comprehend… The Islamic activists in Egypt blow up tourist buses, but it's not personal. They get caught, they get tried in courtroom cages, and are sentenced to hang on the gallows. You and I would beg for mercy, but they don't. When the judge passes the death sentence they jump up and down in excitement, and they are smiling and laughing and praising their God. He won't give a shit, but you cannot comprehend that.'
'Would he know about the bus? Would he know what I did?'
'He'd know.'
'Could you live with that, the sight of the bodies and the smell?'
'I don't have to. It's not my problem.'
'But I do, and it's my torment.'
He pushed himself up, on to his knees, on to his feet, and stood at his full height. The minder, Markham, was tugging at his trousers and trying to drag him down, but he braced himself and stood straight. He saw the birds gliding in the dark water pools, and the gentle motion of the wind in the reed-heads, and the calm, unbroken reflections. He saw the harrier swoop low over the reeds. There was an awesome beauty in the sunlight, and peace. He identified the corruption that had led him to the crime of responsibility for the burned bodies and the smell. He had been 'somebody'; he had been the man who was valued, who was met at the airport with the chauffeured car, who was taken into the room in the house behind the Pall Mall clubs, who talked to a quiet audience and explained the detail of the satellite photography.
He had rejoiced in the attention of being 'somebody', as if a corporate badge hung from a neck chain on his chest. He had thought himself important, but he had only been used. He shouted, 'I am here. I am worthless. It is what I deserve.'
The minder, Markham, struggled to pull him down.
'I know what I am. I am nobody.'
The harrier danced on the reed-heads at the edge of his vision and the sunlight caught on the barrel of the launcher.
'Do it, because I deserve it!'
In the depth of the reeds there was the dazzle of fire. With the fire was the grey belch of smoke and the tell- tale gold-thread signature climbing away from it. The sound thundered towards him. The birds rose screaming, threshing, shrieking from the pools between the reed-banks. The trail of fire rose high above his head, away into the blue denseness of the skies, then seemed to hover as the harrier had, and then it fell. A white line of smoke marked its passing. There was a dull explosion away on fields to the north. The birds quietened and circled.
'And who would have looked after the boy, Mr. Perry?'
'I didn't think…'
'Then start thinking get down.'
He dropped to his knees.
Ahead of him, the reeds erupted as if spitting out what before had been hidden. The young man stood. He was small and thin. The water ran from his shoulders and from his face.
He reached behind him and lifted up the launcher tube and without hesitation he threw the tube far from him, over a bank of reeds, and it splashed down in clear water. Then, he bent before reappearing. Frank Perry could see the dangled legs across his chest and the lolling head behind his shoulder, and he came slowly as if a great weight burdened him.
Frank Perry watched.
The young man carried the body of Vahid Hossein through the reed-banks and out of them.
The minder, Markham, went into the water when they were close and made to help the young man, but the weight of the carcass was not to be shared.
The young man stepped from the mud and on to the cropped grass. The water and mud cascaded off him, and off the corpse. He climbed the bank, grunting at the effort of it, and straddled the fence of rusted barbed wire. He whistled for his dogs. He went up on to the high pathway with the weight of the body on his shoulders.
Frank Perry noticed the harrier soar above, and wondered whether the bird was watching them.
They walked in file back towards the village, led by the young man with his burden.
The villagers had heard the explosion. Some pretended they had not. Some broke from the link of their conversation, listened, then talked again. Some heard it and crept away to a corner of privacy. It was not possible to escape the sound of the explosion… Davies heard it, and Blake, Paget and Rankin, and the nanny policewoman clutched the child to her in the moments after the windows had rattled at the house. The soldiers working through the Southmarsh towards the snipers' rifles heard it.
Gussie brought the news to the pub. He had run at full pace from the pig-fields overlooking Northmarsh.
'They've got him. They're bringing him in. He's dead.'
At the edge of the village, Geoff Markham hurried to keep up with Chalmers, who carried the body easily, moving with a fast, loping walk. Perry was behind, and it was as if it were nothing to do with him. He saw the crowd gathered on the green across the road from the house, standing loosely, watching and waiting. When Markham caught up with him he walked beside Chalmers, and the head of the carcass lolled lifelessly against his arm.
'Why did you do it?'
There was no answer, no turn of the head, no attempt at explanation. Markham thought he understood the
