Mattie stood at the window until Henry said, 'This house they drove you to?'
'I was blindfolded when we got there, I didn't see it. When I went out of it then, it was dark.'
'Tell me what you can about the house.'
'They didn't take me on a tour, they weren't trying to sell it me.'
He saw the puzzle at Henry's forehead. Stupid thing to have said.
…
'Is there a problem, Mattie?'
'I'm sorry – of course, there's a problem. You are asking me to recall a house where I was tortured, where others have been put to death.'
'We'll just take it slowly, that way it won't be so painful.
You've nothing to be ashamed of, Mattie.'
'Ashamed?' He spoke in Henry's soft voice. He rolled the word. 'Ashamed?' Mattie spat the word back at him.
The conciliatory raising of the hands. 'Don't misunderstand me, Mattie.'
'Why should I be ashamed?'
'Well, we've been working on the assumption…'
'What assumption?'
'We had to assume that you had been taken by agents of the Iranian regime, and that of course you would be interrogated, and in due course that you would be, well, broken or killed…
That was a reasonable assumption, Mattie.'
'Reasonable?'
'You'd have made the same assumption, Mattie, of course you would.'
'And at what stage did you decide that Mattie Furniss would have been broken?'
Henry squirmed. 'I don't know anything about pain.'
'How could you?'
'Myself, I wouldn't have lasted a day, perhaps not even a morning. I think just the knowledge of what was going to be done to me would have been enough to tip me into the confessional. You shouldn't feel bad about it, Mattie.'
'So, I was written off?'
'Not by the Director General. I am afraid almost everyone else did.'
'Most touching faith you had in me. And did you shake the dust off my obituary? Had you booked St Martin's for a Memorial? Tell me, Henry, who was going to give the Address?'
'Come on, Mattie, this isn't like you. You've been on this side of the fence. You know what the form is.'
'It's just abominable, Henry, to realize that Century believes a senior officer of the Service will cave in at the end of the first day, like some damn Girl Guide – I'm flattered… '
'We made our assumption, we aborted the field agents.'
A sharpness in Mattie's voice, 'They're out?'
'We aborted them, they're not out yet.'
Mattie sat upright in his chair, his chest heaved. There were still the pain pangs deep in his chest. 'You assumed that I would be broken within 24 hours, can I assume that you aborted as soon as I went missing? How can it be that two weeks later the agents are not out?'
'It was felt, I believe, that aborting a very precious network was a big step, takes years to rebuild. It took them a little time to get to the sticking point. Part of it was that the DG convinced himself that you would never talk. All sorts of waffle about Furniss of the old school. Frankly, I don't think he knows the first thing about interrogation. Anyway, wiser heads prevailed, as they say, and the messages were sent, but the agents are not yet out. .. '
'Christ… '
Mattie stood. Dreadful pain in his face. Pain from his feet that were bandaged and inside bedroom slippers that would otherwise have been three sizes too large.
'It wasn't easy, knowing nothing, hearing nothing.'
A cold whip in Mattie's voice. 'I clung on, I went through hell – yes, hell, Henry, and at Century you couldn't get your fucking act together… it makes me sick to think of it.'
'I have the impression that there was more interest, more interest even than in the safety of the field agents, in whether Eshraq was compromised… '
Mattie swung his shoulders. His eyes fixed on Henry.
'What do you know about Eshraq?'
'That he is of very considerable importance.'
'While I was away my safe was rifled, yes?'
'Rifled? No, Mattie, that is unreasonable. Of course we went through your safe. We had to know about Eshraq… '
Henry paused. The silence weighed. He looked up at Mattie.
There was the attempt at kindness, and understanding, and friendship. 'I gather that Charlie Eshraq is not just important for his potential in the field, but also that he is very close to your family.'
'So my safe was gutted.'
'Mattie, please… we had to know everything about the boy, and now we have to know whether he is compromised.'
'So you burrow about in my private files and you find that he is close to my family, is that it?'
'That's right.'
'Here you assumed that I would talk to my torturers about a young man who is like a son to me?'
'I'm sorry, Mattie, that has been our assumption.'
'Your assumption, but not the Director General's?'
'Correct.'
'But all the rest of you?'
'The Director General said he thought that you would go to the grave before you named names.'
'You, Henry, what do you think?'
'I've seen the medical reports. I know the extent of your injuries. I have an idea of what was done to you. To have escaped after all that argues a phenomenal constitution, phenomenal courage.'
'I killed three men getting away. I broke the neck of one, I strangled one, I drove one down.'
'If there were doubters, Mattie, they will obviously keep their doubts to themselves. I didn't know that, of course, and I am horrified to hear it. One has no idea what one may be capable of in extremis.'
'Am I capable of betraying Charlie, that's what you are asking yourself.'
'To me, Mattie, God's truth, you are one of the finest men that I have known in my lifetime with the Service, but no one, no one in the world, is capable of withstanding torture indefinitely. You know that and nobody in the Service is holding it against you. Everyone thinks it was wrong to send you – my God, I hope the DG doesn't listen to this tape – and, well, to tell you the truth, quite a few people think you were a fair old chump to be gallivanting about on your own near the border. That's what comes of being an archaeologist, I suppose.'
Mattie smiled at the irony. He walked to the window. He did not need to hold on to the chair backs. He walked as if there were no pain in his feet, as if he could straighten his back and there was no pain in his chest. He stared out. There was a brisk sunshine lighting the lawn.
'I may have named the field agents, I can't be certain.
There were times that I was unconscious, I might have been delirious. There were times when I thought I was dead and certainly prayed I would be. But that was, oh Christ, after days of agony. If the agents were not aborted immediately then I won't accept the blame for that… '
'And Eshraq, did you name Eshraq?'
The dog was barking in the kitchen, frustrated at being denied the run of the house. Mattie turned, stared levelly across the hearth rug at Henry.
'No, Henry, I couldn't have done that. I'd much sooner be dead than have done that.'
'Mattie, truly, I take my hat off to you.'
The lorry began the journey from the north of England to the port of Dover. Midday Saturday, and the lorry
