Back at Thames House, he told Cox what he had achieved and the raid on the cabinet began.
Fenton was downing his second drink, might have been the third, when an assistant director wandered into the office.
'I've just heard well done, Barney. Up on the top floor we're all very pleased, but then we always had confidence that you'd get it right. My congratulations, Barney.'
The body had been taken.
Davies had gone.
Paget and Rankin had left before him, loaded their kit into the car and driven away.
Geoff Markham had stayed as little time as possible.
The workmen had dismantled the poles and the screens hanging between them; the crane would be there in the morning to lift out the hut, and the technical people to disconnect the electronics. The workmen had carried out the sandbags and had helped to manhandle the mattresses back to the beds upstairs.
Only Blake, the last of his friends, remained, but would leave at dawn.
The dusk fell. He had opened every heavy curtain in the house and the lights blazed out over the green. He had torn out all of the net curtains, peeled the sticky tape from the mirrors and placed their pictures back on the walls. He had pushed his easy chair, in the living room, away from the fire and into the window. He sat in his chair and the brightness of the lights lit the path, the front gate and the fence. He saw them come Jerry and Mary first, then Barry and Emma.
They came out of the darkness beyond the throw of the lights and they laid the flowers against the gate and the fence. The gang from the pub followed them with more flowers. A few minutes afterwards it was Mrs. Fairbrother, Peggy and Paul. The call had come from London. A drink-slurred voice, against a background of laughter and bottles clinking with glasses and music, had told him that the danger was past and would not return, that he was free to live his life.
The boy, her child, sat at his feet and watched with him as the cluster of flowers grew the vicar brought fresh-picked daffodils. The voice had said that what had never happened was over.
Early in the morning, after Blake had gone, he would ring for a van, and after he had fixed for it to take away their possessions he would make the arrangements for the funeral, and after the funeral he would drive away from the village with her child. He would drive to a place where he and her d~ild could remember her and give her love, a place where they were safe together from guns and friends.
He sat in the chair, his fingers gripping the boy's shoulders, and watched the stream of shadowy figures come in silence from the darkness, pause by the gate, before hurrying back to the safety of their homes. Together they listened to the distant sound of waves breaking relentlessly against the shore and stared out, beyond the floral penance, into the emptiness of the black night.
