massage his hips, his knees and his ankles.
When he had worked over the flesh, kneaded the joints and ligaments under the skin, he stood to his full height, made a bow arc of his back and stretched his arms. He would run – maybe he would close his eyes – towards the trees by the river. In his mind he put the boxes in their place. He would run for the river. A track of grey stone led from the river to the village, where he would find a car; he had the PPK
Walther pistol. He readied himself. He thought he would count to ten, and then he would run. He should not have, but he looked at the ground between himself and the river. The carcass of bones was bleached white, was cleaned in the sun, as if fresh paint was on it. Grass grew through the ribcage…
And the voice intruded once more.
'What you have to think of, Mister, is when it's going to happen: your first step or your last step, or one of the middle steps. At the start, at the end, or in between – you don't know, do you? And you don't know whether you'll scream, like the Eagle screamed.'
After he had seen the first skeleton, Mister counted six more. Some were on their backs, some on their sides, and others had just crumpled down as if their knees had given way beneath them and their heads had fallen forward. Two of the white bone hulks were directly between himself and the river.
Three more were to the right, and two were to the left.
There was no pattern to them. Should he run the shortest way loop to the left or right, or zigzag? He gazed out at the bones.
'Go on, Mister, run. Run so I can hear you scream.'
His legs were stiff, dead. He could not take the step.
Mister stopped the count. He was short of the last number. The wind played on the grass that covered the earth, and moved the dead dark weed stems. He heard the cry of crows above him, and the gnawing of the fox's jaws on the leg bone. He was leaden. The light and the warmth were on his face. He stood alone in the field.
'God, you're a disappointment to me, Mister. Is the fear that bad?'
They woke, they separated. The ground hadn't moved for Maggie Bolton, but the chassis of the blue van had.
Three times they'd done it. She'd let Frank do what neither the Polish boy nor the young Arab had been allowed to. She couldn't have said which of the three times was the best, but she'd have been able to hazard which was the worst. She was in her forty-eighth year.
It had been, for her, the first, second and third time – and there would not be another. She doubted that even a kid of fifteen, on heat, would have chosen to lose their virginity in the back of the blue van on a bed of coats and rugs, beside the new bucket. If it had been with any of the men in Vauxhall Bridge Cross – they'd tried hard enough – the bed would at least have cost them two hundred and fifty pounds in a West End hotel. Frank Williams lay against her and his cheek's stubble prickled her breast.
'So, is that what all the fuss is about?'
'You, Maggie, are an amazing screw.'
' I don't think so – you are certainly not.'
He turned away from her. Her back to him, she dressed… It would have been better with Joey. He had smooth hands, and long fingers, but he hadn't offered. She hooked on her bra. The light trickled opaquely through the back windows of the van and she found her knickers on the van's ribbed floor. They were torn – when he'd ripped them off. She wriggled into them, and her tights, and dragged on her jeans.
She wanted to be alone in her bed. She wondered if he'd talk about her to people in whatever bar he drank at, if her name would go on a list.
'Well, go on, get on with it.'
'Get on with what?'
'Look after your prisoner – find out what's going on.'
'You're great, Maggie – don't hurt yourself.'
' I am a middle-aged woman and so desperate for it that I'm the original easy lay. Don't worry, I'm grateful
– you'v cured my curiousity.'
' I thought there might be a future for us.'
'Nothing good comes out of Bosnia – never has, never will. Get rid of them.'
She gestured behind her. Laid on the wheel arch, carefully balanced, were three knotted condoms. She pulled on her blouse and her sweater, then tugged her anorak out from under him. She clicked open the metal-sided box and lifted out the video camera and the collapsed tripod. He was putting on his vest, often washed and a fading dragon rampant on it. She took the mobile phone from the integral battery-charger in the case. His socks, sliding on to his feet, were threadbare at the heels. She hooked the phone's cables to the video. When he had his shoes on he snatched up the condoms, and leaned across to kiss her. Then he went to see to his prisoner, and Maggie took the video camera, the tripod and the mobile telephone out of the van,
She walked a few strides down the track that was hemmed in by yellow tape. She found a vantage-point. She wondered if she would be different when she returned to C'eausescu Towers, whether the people she worked with would recognize it. 'You know what, 1 think that tease bitch finally opened her legs… I reckon she had it, at last.' She set up the tripod then searched for stones inside the tape cordon and wedged them against the tripod's feet. It would have been better, on all three times, if she'd thought of Joey Cann. She screwed the video camera onto the tripod's head. She had never reached Joey Cann. She held the mobile in her hand, stood back to let the wind snag the tripod and the camera, and she was satisfied that the picture would be steady. He wore no uniform, but she could not have discarded hers.. . She would never reach him. On the track, Frank was in animated conversation with the de-mining team, men made grotesque by their plated waistcoats and visored helmets.
The wind brought her the flat tone of the shouted voice.
' I'm thinking the fear's worse, Mister. Each minute that you put it off, the running, will make it harder, Mister. I want to see you run, Mister, and I want to hear you scream.'
She looked over the sunlit valley… Beyond an abandoned vineyard, half-way between the tree-line and the river and far from the yellow tape, in the middle of an expanse of field, Target One stood. The crows circled above him. Near to him was the body of Target Two, and close to it was a blob of colour she could not identify. It was all, to her eyes, so pretty…
Joey had brought her there… so pretty and so cruel.
She would never reach him.
She aimed the camera and dialled the number.
Five men lumbered along the slight gap between the tree-line and the yellow tape. Frank was ahead of them, unencumbered. At the back of the line was a German shepherd dog on a rope leash, bigger than Nasir and older.
When they came close, Joey looked into their eyes.
There was a weariness, a dullness, that matched the slow speed of their approach. They wore overalls of dreary grey and heavy boots, thick shapeless waistcoats with a flap that hung down over their privates, and bulbous helmets with raised visors of unwashed Perspex. They carried thin metal probes and garden shears, and one had a small handsaw. Another had a metal-detector hoisted on his shoulder, and the one who held the dog's rope had a roll of yellow tape under his arm.
Nasir, growling, was taken hy Muhsin back into the trees.
Frank made the introductions.
Joey was asked by the foreman – good English – for his assessment.
Joey scowled. 'Two men, both British citizens, went into the field just before ten o'clock last night. At one minute past ten, a mine was detonated by the fugitive nearest to us Target Two, we call him. He bawled a bit, then he went quiet Alter midnight Target Two started to talk, but target One shot him. Target One is alone. He nearly moved at dawn. He stood and readied himself lo move, but then changed his mind.
He's not moved since he stood.'
He hated saying each word to the foreman. The man came into his space, the others with him, and their dog.
'So,' the foreman said, without enthusiasm, 'we have one cadaver and one uninjured person – that is correct?'
