Vagabond

by Seymour, Gerald

  There was something he should do, but coherence slipped and he lost the thread.

  Danny Curnow barely swam. He hung on but the water was around him and soon it would lap over him, covering his mouth, nose and eyes. Then he would see nothing but the darkness that was now around him. A few people were watching him, he was sure. Matthew Bentinick was there, and didn’t encourage Vagabond to keep fighting. No: Bentinick stood tall and austere in his office clothes, watched him and took time off only to load more tobacco into his pipe. There was no criticism and no praise. Near to Bentinick, Gaby Davies had the posture of a young woman who had achieved a position of authority and was not prepared to let it slide: loose-fitting jeans, old trainers, feet apart, hands on hips, back straight in a shapeless anorak. The wind whipped her short dark hair but her eyes pierced him and would not be deflected. She was power. Dusty Miller was there – funny, that. Dusty didn’t seem to recognise him. He was near to Bentinick and Gaby but wasn’t focusing on his Vagabond. Danny heard himself call, ‘Hey, Dusty, Desperate here, right in front of you, need a heave up. Not in a very good state . . .’ But he didn’t come. Neither did Karol Pilar, nor Malachy Riordan . . . And he saw fair hair, tugged by the wind off the sea, and heard a voice with a soft, guttural accent talk about ‘commitment’.

  Nobody came into the water and nobody took his wrist. He was sinking. More faces watched him, from the crypt of the church of St Cyril and St Methodius. They were surrounded and condemned, gazing at him.

  Danny Curnow might have slept – but the ringing was too loud. He cursed it: he couldn’t sleep if a bell rang so close to his face. He grappled for it. It persisted. The phone was what he had forgotten after the blow to his chest. He scrabbled among leaves and saw its dull light but couldn’t reach it. It rang, teasing him.

  Dusty stood by the window, his curtains wide. He could see across the yacht basin towards the old buildings of Caen. Christine slept a little noisily behind him, and he felt good. He actually felt blessed, as he always did when Christine came to him. She’d stay till nearly dawn, then would slip on her robe and tiptoe away. Of course her mother knew, but it was the ritual of the house. It might have been the same long ago when a young German officer had visited a back bedroom – perhaps with a view of the cliffs he would die defending – and shagged the teenage daughter. Because he felt blessed he had the phone to his ear.

  He liked the girl, Hanne. He might get his privates chewed off, but the phone would be on vibration mode. He liked and admired her. One day, he might win a cuff on the shoulder from his friend and gruff thanks, rather than a chewing. He wanted to tell him what he’d done. The cool of the small hours was on his naked skin, and few cars moved below him. The masts rattled sharply and a few gulls screamed: truth was, and at his age it was unlikely, he felt a sort of softness he’d hardly admit to. He might get torn off a strip when the phone was answered – wherever Desperate was – and might not. It was worth the chance.

  He listened, heard it ring out.

  Very still, then relaxing. Listening. Gaining confidence. Ralph Exton moved. The call of the phone was a beacon for him. At first he was on his hands and knees, then on his feet but crouching. He tried to go slowly and make no noise but he scuffed leaves, crunched broken glass and broke twigs. He had been too long on his own and was cold, hungry, thirsty, and had been too long in fear. He went towards the phone.

  Ralph Exton was not a man easily annoyed and seldom lost his temper. They had left him, and that angered him. He was used to Fliss winding him up – not many men he knew would have found the condom wrapping under the marital bed, then binned it. She was on the Pill so a condom meant a comparative stranger and the potential risk of HIV, so it had been a precaution against sexually transmitted disease. He remembered pausing beside the green and black bins behind the house and wondering if it was for recycling or landfill. He’d turned the cheek when she’d come back, late and flushed – she would have been with the dentist. His temper had held over breakfast when they’d had to send Toria to school – aged fourteen – with a love-bite on her throat. And he’d kept his temper when the cat had messed on the expensive carpet he’d brought back from Armenia. And when the village shop had indicated that credit was a thing of the past.

  They had left him. The handler, the bully, wasn’t there. The woman, happy enough to have a fling with him, had ditched him.

  They had taken Timofey, his old mate. A devious bastard, but favours done had been returned, and his 7.5 per cent commission, plus expenses, on the deal was already banked. The driver had done an early runner, as had the guy from the Caucasus who had brought the gear. They weren’t his problem.

  Neither was Malachy Riordan, a hard fighter by reputation, but so obviously out of his depth and far from what was familiar, nor the girl who had gone missing. No problem with them.

  Gaby Davies had responsibility for him and should have looked for him. Danny, who had never had another name, ought to have made bloody certain that Ralph Exton had a lift out of this place.

  Then he had heard a voice, couldn’t put a face to it, doing a monologue – it had gone unanswered, and he had stayed still. A shot had been fired, likely to have been from an AK assault rifle, and he had heard the noise of flight, then the phone. Didn’t Gaby and Danny have a duty of care to him? He was quite close to where the phone was when it cut out.

  No light, only the moon, and there was a vague silver mist above the ground, which insinuated itself between the trees. He saw the shapes of buildings. He was bent low as he walked. He stepped on the phone, which broke under his foot. He tripped on an inert shape and heard the wheeze, then the faint oath.

  He steadied himself and the body winced. He peered down, squinted, could make out what might have been a driving licence or credit card and the fingers that held it in place. Danny. He remembered the voice – not the whispered curse, the bubble in it, or the wheeze. The voice he recalled had been crisp, quiet, could do it line by line and word by word: . . . the ingratitude, or arrogance – unsure which – that leads to a paid informer, a betrayer of trust, forgetting who pays him . . . It’s those horrible, big bloody computers and resources that are limitless. We can find you any time and any place . . . You would be at the mercy of a telephone call . . . a call to Russia or a call to Ireland, and an address given . . . Fuck about with me, Ralph – with me, not with Miss Davies – and we’d let you run awhile and the tension would near kill you and the fear of shadows and when you were on your knees and swearing suicide we’d make the call . . . Nasty old world. No room for misunderstanding. That had been Thursday. This was the start of Saturday. It had been a long week – and a long one always left him tired, not thinking as clearly as he would have liked. He saw the man on the ground, the stain on the shirt and bare skin. He could have kicked him, could have walked on past him and gone into what was left of the night. Or he could have knelt, and did so.

  He asked the obvious: ‘Is it hurting much?’

  ‘Still shock, but pain keeps coming.’

  A stutter in the voice and the bubbling was back, with some froth. Ralph pushed his head forward so that his ear was against the mouth. ‘It’s a bit of a hole.’

  ‘Two, actually. One at the back . . . Don’t think of moving me. Best to leave alone. I don’t suppose you’re trained.’

  ‘No. Never thought about it.’

  ‘Well, it’s not the sort of evening class they do in the village hall. Not the same as coronaries and blackouts and fractured hips.’

  It had been a long sentence and seemed to tire him more. Ralph now had an arm under the guy’s neck and held him steady. The eyes were wide and looked hard at him. They had been deep, dark and bright when he’d threatened, but had dulled. He thought it was how men would have been when a colleague was down on a battlefield . . . How are the mighty fallen, And the weapons of war perished.

  He didn’t know what to do.

  ‘What were you shot with?

  ‘The rifle he had for target work.’
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  ‘Bloody hell. Miserable beggar showed me a drill, power up, held it close, but I fooled him. Bad luck he was that close to you.’

  ‘I taunted him, tried to break him. First step was to loose his cool, then walk on him.’

  ‘What you did with me.’

  More spittle was at the lips. He rummaged in his trouser pocket. A nurse would have bawled at him. Not a clean handkerchief, but what he had. He wiped Danny’s lips and cursed that he had no water with him – and no knowledge.

  ‘More success with you. Do you know where we are?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Would anyone find us?’

  ‘Wouldn’t have thought so – we drove a hell of a way. I haven’t a clue where we are, and I left my phone at the hotel. It’s on charge. Sorry, but . . .’

  ‘But? Sorry for what?’

  ‘I stepped on yours, banjaxed it.’ He did it with what he hoped was the lightness of casual conversation. Out of communication. Ralph didn’t think he had the strength to dump the man, go off into the night and wave down a vehicle if he ever made it to a public road. He couldn’t have left him.

  ‘You’ve reason to hate me.’

  ‘Never was good at that, hating people.’

  ‘And reason to walk away.’

  ‘Not in the mood. I’m all right where I am.’ He used the handkerchief on the forehead where sweat was building.

  ‘You ever had the feeling that a blind is about to be drawn on you? With the drill?’

  ‘Not then. It was a bit bloody when they took me up the mountain in a van, no windows and hooded. But the face garb shifted and I saw what I was sharing the back with: bin liners they’d have used for contaminated clothing – blood or cordite – plenty of heavy tape for wrists and legs, and a spade for digging a hole. That wasn’t great. Want to know what’s been the worst eye to eye with a sticky end?’

  ‘Want to know.’

  ‘It was what you said to me, Danny. The burden, the fear, the over-your-shoulder stuff, folks hunting for me. That was as bad as anything.’

  ‘Not much to say.’

  ‘Don’t fucking apologise. My wife, having a fling with a tooth-puller, tried to come clean and I shut her up. It puts you in the wrong when someone apologises. Anyway, what you did was in the name of the state.’

  ‘I’m what they use, the justification.’ So faint.

  ‘And I’m what they do business with.’ He spoke with a bogus cheerfulness, as if the confessional had little relevance and would be forgotten the next morning. They’d be right as rain, both of them.

  ‘Puts us together.’

  ‘Frogs in the same bucket. We’re at the bottom and can’t climb out until they decide we might be of no further use. If they’re feeling good, they’ll tip us into a pond. If they’re not, well . . .’

  ‘I’m not proud of what I did.’

  ‘They didn’t ask you to be proud, or wait in line for a medal. Did anyone ever stand on the pavement and watch you march by, full uniform, clap and thank you, show some gratitude? Can I tell you something, Danny?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘You don’t take it with you. You don’t take the good or the bad. It’s like the slate is wiped clean. No pockets in a shroud. Do you have a girl, Danny, who’ll get you up and running?’

  ‘Used to, should have.’

  ‘Go after her, Danny. I might do the same myself. Danny, I think it’ll be better when the light comes, not too long. Then they’ll be out looking for us. Why not get a bit of sleep?’

  ‘I might.’

  ‘There’s no hate, Danny.’ His eyes welled.

  ‘Thanks.’

  The tears ran down his cheeks. He fought to keep the quaver out of his voice. ‘Get a bit of sleep, and you’ll feel better for it. Pity there isn’t a cup of tea.’

  An Austrian long-distance haulier, en-route to Berlin, picked up a man he believed to be a Briton from the side of the road. He was glad of the company and would drop his hitch-hiker on the outskirts of Prague. He shared his sausage with him and his coffee.

  A van waited for them at a lay-by on the road that ran from the Czech town of Teplice to the German community at Altenberg. The frontier was a kilometre ahead.

  The detective had talked incessantly and she had listened reluctantly. ‘Russian organised crime groups have broken our nation’s faith in the country’s institutions. They have infiltrated them and targeted the political élite. Godfathers are linked to the judiciary, mafiosi to elected representatives.’

  Two men lifted the trussed figure and he was carried from the boot of the car to the van’s rear doors. One checked a pulse and nodded. They shook hands. Gabrielle Davies believed a degree of formality was appropriate and Karol Pilar made no attempt to kiss her cheek.

  ‘It is the equivalent of every inhabitant of the Czech Republic paying thirty pounds a month because of the theft by the Mafia. They have stolen our country. We don’t know now who owns us, which faceless thieves. They have penetrated all that we value. Elections are a theatrical sideshow. Corruption is an assault on the principle that everyone is equal before the law.’

  Good work achieved, a task well done, and both would have reckoned themselves central to the success. She was driven forward, ignored a Nicht Rauchen sign on the dash and accepted the offer of a Marlboro Lite. She didn’t look into the mirror to see the disappearing tail-lights of the Czech’s little car.

  He had said, ‘I tell you, Miss Davies, that the Solntsevo organisation from Moscow and the Tombovskaya group from St Petersburg have made huge investments, billions of Czech koruna in Prague and Karlovy Vary. They safeguard their most important routes for trafficking prostitutes, weapons and narcotics. Our territory is a highway to them.’

  Less than fifty kilometres to the strip, around a half-hour drive.

  He had continued, ‘You have won a fist-fight – and I am pleased for you, Miss Davies – but not a war. And, please, do not think your own country, Great Britain, is safe against this infiltration. Nowhere is safe. Do not be complacent. It was good to work with you, and a pleasure to be with Danny. Give him my good wishes.’

  Now she texted again.

  He was asleep. Jocelyn observed Matthew Bentinick, head on his arms, the upper body moving as he breathed. The message was already with the director general. She had accepted congratulations.

  She woke him, a gentle hand on his arm. There might have been something, once, if things had been different. He started, for a moment was uncertain of his bearings, then regained his composure. He straightened his tie, smoothed his hair. She showed him the printout of the text received and a smile – short, wintry – slipped across his face. He thanked her. She said that a car was waiting at the side door on Horseferry Road, that she’d call him when the aircraft lifted. He was out of his chair, shook himself, cleared his throat, then was gone down the corridor, leaving the echo behind him of his shoes. Jocelyn turned off the lights and locked up after him.

  She would be another hour in her room and expected George to drift down and take a small glass with her: he usually did when an operation went so flawlessly.

  An aircraft flew from Germany into the Netherlands as a prisoner was brought to the jurisdiction of a court. The man sat hunched, aware of his surroundings and their implications. He was handcuffed, unable to smoke and could drink only water. He would be disowned by the morning and his territory would be scrapped over by predators. They were in turbulence, an autumn storm tossing them. He felt fear, and could remember as a child seeing that same fear on the features of new men brought to Perm 35.

  He was surprised at how considerably Henry Carter had aged. But still, so many years after his formal retirement, he was reputed to be ‘an officer of thorough integrity’. The man stooped but had a pleasant smile. Must have been at least eighty. The good thing about Henry Carter, an archivist of quality used on both sides of the river, was that he had long before lost sight of the personalities of the day. He wrote reports. They were without bias
because he was unaffected by factions on the rise and those losing influence, and seemed to have retained the ability to cut to the quick. He professed to admire birds more than people, and could be feisty but usually held it in check. A good man, useful, but seemed frail in his suit. His eyebrows needed a trim.

  The hand the director general shook was thin, the veins prominent and the skin discoloured, but the grip was firm. From a briefcase, scuffed but with the old EIIR symbol still visible below the lock, a folder was taken and handed over. Carter was a veteran, had done time on that ghastly fence dividing the Germanys and had run an agent across, waiting through the night for him. He understood the work in the building, regardless of the passage of time and changed operating procedures. The director general took the folder. He would read typed pages because Carter still eschewed the keyboard and screen. He glanced discreetly at his watch. He was due to lunch at the American embassy – their man was up for rotation and would be happy to get the hell out of London in the grip of November. He thanked Carter and escorted him to the outer office; a probationer would take him down to the canteen for a sandwich.

  He went back into his office and buzzed his PA: he didn’t want to be disturbed before the car came to ferry him to Grosvenor Square.

  The folder was titled ‘Vagabond’. The director general imagined he would enjoy reading it: the operation had engendered satisfaction. He lingered on the word. Vagabond. He opened the file. There was a précis on top, then the full version below. He took the briefer one. There were to be contributions by principal players, then Carter’s remarks, and there was space in the margins for him to add his comments.