down there, Malachy, to Prague – God, I'm doing the running. Can't you help me? – and see me there?
Walk around a bit, eat a bit, sleep a bit. I'd said to myself, after tonight, that I'd go my way and you'd go yours. Doesn't have to be like that. I'm saying I'd like it, Malachy, if you came down to Prague… '
Maybe there was a wetness behind her spectacles, in her eyes. She had them off. He saw the dull white of her handkerchief and he sensed she wiped hard at her eyes and then her head turned away from him as if, even in darkness, she did not care to show her emotion.
He was gone, away. He had not needed to hit her.
He rolled, fast, clear of her, was on his knees, then pushed himself upright, stamped his shoes for grip and sand spat from under them. He threw the pistol behind him, towards her.
He was into the gully that cut past the crest of the dune.
He heard her. 'Damn you, you bastard! For God's sake, it's not about you. It's for hundreds of people.
You bastard, Malachy Kitchen. Didn't you hear what I said? The big picture?'
Up the gully, on to a path that was narrow enough for the thorn to catch his coat, Malachy ran.
'I found nothing.'
Ricky stumbled back and down into the sheltered hollow, then tripped on his own feet. Falling, arm out, he caught at a branch and tightened his fist, then squealed because he had hold of thorns. The pencil beam of the small torch approached him.
'You got the light, Dean. Don't know what I'm looking for – but I found nothing.'
He heard a murmur but could not make out what he was told. His ears rang, still, with the blast of the weapon's discharge – like he was goddamn deaf. The beam came close, then wavered and fell on the depth of the scrub. Bloodstains were on the ground below the canopy of leaves. From blundering in the thorn-bushes, Ricky's face and arms were scratched, his coat and the waterproof trousers ripped. The gun had been fired beside his face, inches from his ears. It had been so fast. Last thing he had heard was a twig, dry, breaking, and there had been the convulsion of movement beside him, then the hammer of the gun, and he had been heaved to his feet by a hand on his collar – not able to make out the command given him. Had not known what he looked for, had found nothing. He gazed down at the blood, then the torch's beam veered away.
'Who was he? What did you see?'
No answer was given him that he could under stand. What was said was a whisper to him.
'No point staying quiet – you woke the damn dead.'
His hand was grabbed. For a moment he recoiled, then realized it. The grip on his hand was iron tight.
The panic was in him and he was about to lash out, because fear made fury, when he felt the smooth shape of the handle against his fingers. He clamped on it, took the weight of the radio in his hand.
'Right, you tell me, where is he?'
Again the whisper.
'Haven't you got it? I can't hear nothing.'
He stood and shivered, and the shape moved around him as if he checked the ground for anything they had left there. The light came close again, a dull, narrow beam, and it showed the crushed grass, then shone on the barrel tip of the weapon, then started to move off. Ricky had to run two, three strides to catch the man. The radio's case banged against his knee and he swore, then raised his free arm and took hold of the shoulder in front of him.
'It wasn't bloody clever – I don't do mouthing off but it was not clever to fire that bloody gun. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a frightened man, but you could have brought all hell down on us, and that is not clever. Who was it creeping up on us? Did you see him? I'm asking, and I've the right to ask, what-'
He heard, in the clamour at his ears, a hiss of breath through teeth – as if he was shushed, like he was a kid talking out of turn. They were on a path and they climbed and the beam lit a jolting patch of ground in front of each of Dean's steps and the torch was held low down. If he had not held on to Dean's shoulder he would have spilled off the path and fallen into the scrub. For a moment the beam lifted and found a strip of torn cloth and there they had to push their way, him first and Ricky following, between thorns. He had pain, but the fear was worse.
When had Ricky Capel last known fear worse than pain? Couldn't bloody remember it. He saw the face.
The face was on the pavement and the street light fell on it. He thought the face followed him, the face from Bevin Close – and now it tracked him… Three shots fired. Blood on the ground. No body. Not a scream and not a whimper. He thought the face laughed at him. Bad fear stalked Ricky Capel, like the face did.
He clung to the shoulder, hung on to it as a blind man would. Never before, not as a child had he felt bad fear… and he thought the man came after him, dripped blood and followed him. He strained to listen for the footfall behind him but in his ears was only the ring, the clamour, of the gunshots.
'I screwed up,' Polly said. 'I screwed up big.' She sat hunched, her chin on her knees and the phone pressed to her face. 'I can't believe it, how pathetic I was.'
The darkness enveloped her, clung round her. He'd answered her call, now Gaunt's silence echoed back at her.
'I gave him the party line. I called it the big picture.
What I'm saying, Freddie, is that I thought he'd accepted it. You know, his little concerns outweighed by the needs of the masses. He didn't argue. Three shots were fired somewhere out in this bloody place -
God knows where – but I'd given him the instruction.
No intervention. Sit, watch and report. He listened, seemed to swallow what I gave him, then quit on me.
I don't know where he is… Freddie, it is so damn dark here you can't see the end of your nose, and I don't know what he's going to do. I'd given him a gun
– pretty damn stupid, you don't have to tell me – but he chucked it back at me, like he wouldn't be needing it. What's in his mind? I just don't know.'
She was the daughter of schoolteachers. It had been drilled into Polly Wilkins that to admit failure, own up to error, won its own rewards in heaven. Most colleagues who had shared desks with her at Vauxhall Bridge Cross, she thought, would have wormed, wriggled, from admission of failure and error. The response in her ear was a long, measured sigh – she reckoned it not of anger but the sadness of disappointment.
'I will, of course, do what I can to give due warning of any pickup. I have to say that a lift off the beach will not be fun. It's a foul evening and it's not changing…
What's worst, Freddie, I miss him. It was sort of good having him here. What I realize, he's not missing me, just dumped me, a bloody used fag carton… I don't know where it's going… Nothing much else to say.'
'I won't be here myself, but calls to this number will be routed to the necessary people… Thank you, Wilco.'
He knew what she meant. Frederick Gaunt could empathize, knew what it felt to be a bloody used fag carton and dumped. He rang off, pressed the button that deactivated the phone's scrambler. He sensed that Gloria hovered behind him and thought her mouth would be slack with astonishment. It was, he believed, a defining moment of his adult life: I won't be here myself. He could have reflected on other such moments of importance that had fashioned his career and domestic existence – a loveless marriage, the bitter process of divorce, children taught to reject him, the first night of utter loneliness in an old man's bach-elor apartment – the initial occasion when the WMD report had been smartly returned to his desk for re-appraisal, the meeting when he had been lectured on the requirement of politicians to find meat and not scrag ends in the Iraqi desert, the summons to an office on an upper floor, the averted eyes and barked voice telling him that Albania was his new area of interest, the last session in the pub with his old team before they were scattered to the winds. He could have reflected on any of them and could have claimed each of them as a defining moment. Top of the heap, and he knew it, was telling pretty little Polly, frozen half to death on a God-awful beach, that calls to this number will be routed through to the necessary people.
He heard her clear her throat, a brief cough, to demand his attention.
'Did you mean that?'
He said peevishly, turning to face her, 'If I said it, Gloria, I expect that I meant it.'
Her face was wreathed in bewilderment. She stuttered, 'It's coming to an end… It's the last hours…
It's what you've worked for.'
'And it is not, my dear, in my hands.'
'You owe it to Polly to be here.'
'I owe very little, not even pocket change, to anyone.'
