on Barker and said to Tuck,
'Has he been in your house?'
'When?'
'Last week, last seven days, has he been in your house? Has he been home to see his dying mother?'
He saw the choke rise in the throat. He saw him swallow fast.
'I want a fucking answer, Major. Has the little shit been home or not?'
The eyes were no longer on his. The old head, and the well swept grey hair, had ducked.
His voice lifted. ' A n answer, home or not?'
'He's gone.'
'He's been and he's gone?'
The tears were in the eyes. There was a handkerchief at the eyes.
'That's enough,' Barker said.
' I s he coming back? Will he come back again to see his mother?'
Colt's father stood. The tears were bright ribbons on his cheeks.
'You're too late, Mr Erlich. My son has been at home. He has seen his mother. He has made his goodbye to his mother and to me. I do not expect to see my son again. Now, you will excuse me. No. Don't get up. I'll see myself out. Good day to you.' He nodded curtly to Barker, and dealt Erlich a long stare, full of pride, full of loathing. He was very erect as he walked away.
Barker said, 'Erlich, you are a complete and utter shit.'
' I f you people had done your job properly that wouldn't have been necessary.'
' O h, don't take offence, young man. You did well. You got what you came for, I suppose. Ruane will be proud of you. Myself, I find unmannered and pushy young men nauseating company. Tell me, you won't mind my asking, who gave you those fearful bruises?
The waitress couldn't take her eyes off you, I expect you noticed.
Any young man I would consider knowing, if he had taken such a thrashing, would have learned to curb his conceit.'
She was very firm, she brooked no argument. Bissett had not been back in the house ten minutes before she told him what she had arranged. 'I want to go, and we're going.'
It was the middle of the week, they never went out in the middle of the week.
' W e never go out anyway, whether it's the middle of the week or the end of the week.'
What about the boys? The boys just couldn't be left.
'All fixed, Vicky said it would be a pleasure, and she doesn't care what time we are back.'
He didn't know them. She knew, didn't she, that he loathed going to parties where he didn't know anyone.
'They're nice people, really nice, and it'll do you good to get out. You won't get any hassle, they're all solid Tory. They won't be like those bitches I had to field on the doorstep.'
She'd told him about the women from P. A. R. E. Little made him overtly angry. That sort of woman did, but it was one of the reasons why he avoided casual contacts outside the Establishment, that he hated being backed into corners and hectored by the nuclear danger lobby.
'I want to go, Frederick, and you are coming with m e. '
He could think of no further excuse. His paper was in, typed up, and would now be in Boll's safe. Would probably be there for months before it was read.
'What would I have to wear?' he said.
'God, I don't know. Is everyone in that bloody place like you, can anyone make a decision? How do you get anything done?'
'Well, as long as we're not back too late.'
They were already there when Colt drove into the car park on Wimbledon Common.
He sat in their car. Faud talked, Namir was silent in the back.
They explained what was required of him. Bloody hell…
Surprise spilling on his face in the darkened car.
' Y o u want me to do that…?'
Those were the instructions. He was not given the opportunity to argue, or to back off. He assumed that either Faud or Namir would have a handgun. If he had refused, then he wouldn't have made more than a dozen paces from the car. The car park was empty. And where was there for him to run to? His only refuge was Baghdad, when they were good and ready to give him the means to get home to the apartment on the sixth floor of the Haifa Street Housing Project. Home, was that, after all, home?
And if he failed, sure as fate, they would disown him. He had recognised that he was already distanced from his immediate past in Iraq. When the Colonel had identified Colt's potential usefulness he had, at the same time, removed Colt from contact with his family, with his sons. He missed the boys, who had been arrogant, aimless brats when they had first come under Colt's care, who were now toughened from hard hiking into the desert and foothill wilderness around the military compound. He thought they would run to fat again in no time. ..
The instructions were repeated again. A new contact procedure was arranged.
'I want a gun. I shall have to have my Ruger again,' he told them.
From the window Rutherford could see the stream of cars and buses edging out through the Falcon Gate. He had been in the office alongside the Security Officer's room since early afternoon.
He had been given the Personnel file on Bissett to read, which was as thin as a wafer, and speaking of wafers, he'd been given nothing else at all, not even a cup of tea. The Security Officer was pleading pressure of work. Well, obviously, panic stations the previous evening, a wild splatter of backside-protecting telephone calls, and nothing but an embarrassing calm the morning after.
He wasn't welcome. Simple as that. His rank did not flatter the Security Officer.
L
He could understand, too, why he had been called into Hobbes's office and told that he was not required at lunch at the Reform Club, and that he should get himself down to Aldermaston. Dickie Barker was taking over. Barker wanting to be in the dogfight as referee, to see that no harm came to the famous old war hero from Buffalo Bill Erlich.
He heard the rolling stamped footsteps.
'All right, Rutherford?'
God, the man had an unpleasant voice.
'All right, as far as it goes.'
'I think it's gone far enough.'
If he had been offered one solitary cup of tea, leave aside a biscuit, a sandwich, or two fingers of Famous Grouse, then he might not have been so bloody-minded. Or been allowed to be at the lunch at the Reform where he should have been… He swivelled in his chair. 'We'll just have to poke about a bit and see, won't we?' he said.
'I am satisfied that Bissett was just an ass.'
'When I've talked to him, I dare say I will share your satisfaction.'
'I don't think that will be necessary.'
'You called us in, sir, so we're here. When we start, then we finish.'
'I don't need you to run my department, Rutherford.'
'You know better than me, sir, with your long experience, that Curzon Street has a sticky touch… I'm not paid to be easy to get rid of, and this,' he picked up and dropped Bissett's file, 'which it took all of four minutes out of the four hours I have been here to read, would satisfy no one in Curzon Street of anything.'
'It was a one-off. I've discussed it with his department head.
The man's behind with his work, he was just extremely stupid…
'
'And when I've talked to him, then I'm sure I will be able to endorse that.'
'It'll have to wait until the morning.'
Rutherford smiled, sweetly. ' N o problem, sir, I've all the time in the world, all the time it takes.'
And he kept smiling. The Security Officer out-ranked him, of course. Equally, he understood that the Counter- intelligence division of Curzon Street had access wherever it wanted to go, whenever. So here he was, his feet were
