by Alan Judd
‘It’s Nigel Measures.’
‘Not bad. Try again.’
‘We haven’t time. Who is he?’
‘She.’
‘It’s a woman?’
‘Good to see you’re still on the ball. I was going to keep it to myself, because I don’t reckon the bunch of fruitcakes she’s dealing with here are up to much. And of course it wasn’t exactly safe for me to ring my case officers and report. But then there was that cinema bomb a few weeks ago, remember? Nutter blew himself up. I don’t know whether that was them or not but I thought, blood on the streets and all that, innocent people, I can’t risk it. So I rang my old agent number, got an answerphone and just said, “al-Samit is a woman”, nothing more. Didn’t leave my name or anything, but I guessed they’d work out it was me. Voice recognition?’
‘It was a dedicated number. Only you had it.’ The red tractor entered the farmyard below, accompanied by two more collies. Charles got to his feet. He felt damp, stiff and cold. ‘Let’s go over all that again later. We need to work out what we’re going to do. We could chance dinner, if there’s somewhere you could get cleaned up. Where are you staying?’
‘Here.’
‘You can’t.’
‘I can but I shan’t. I have been, but I’ll move on tonight, walking cross-country, lying up during the day. I’ve got enough rations to get me back.’
‘Back where?’
‘If I tell you, it’s a burden. Someone might get it out of you. Need to know, you always used to say.’
‘High Wycombe?’
‘Don’t want to risk getting a good Muslim family into trouble.’
‘I’ll book you into the Lion at Leintwardine. In my name, my credit card. I won’t stay, but we can eat there. Then you can go black again.’
Martin was reluctant. He didn’t want to appear anywhere in public, especially with Charles. Charles argued that the chances of his having brought surveillance with him were negligible. If they didn’t plot Nigel’s downfall now, they’d have to meet again to do it another time, which would be more dangerous.
‘Convenience and comfort are the enemies of security, you always used to say,’ said Martin. ‘What’s changed?’
It was almost dark by the time Charles prevailed.
‘It’s the thought of a bath, really,’ said Martin, getting up and brushing himself down. ‘Getting soft in my old age.’
He gathered his kit and they walked together back up the darkening hill and then down to where the car was parked, taking care not to be silhouetted against the stippled western sky.
When they reached the Lion, Charles went in and paid while Martin took his time unloading his kit from the car.
‘Wait till I open the fire escape for you to come up that way,’ Charles had said before he went in. ‘If they see you looking like that, let alone smell you, they’ll say they’re full.’ He waited downstairs while Martin changed into his reserve shirt and trousers.
They ate a leisurely dinner of local lamb. Martin described the slaughter and preparation of sheep and goats, which he’d learned in Afghanistan. A shave, a bath, a comb through his hair and a change of clothes took five or ten years off him, though he still had to wear his boots. As they talked Charles wondered yet again at the mystery of his own flesh and blood, at those lips, those teeth, those eyes, those hard but now clean hands moving with the easy grace of youth; all conjured unknowingly during a few moments in the dark. As before, he waited to feel some tug at the solar plexus, some lurch in the heart, some intimate stab of recognition. But none came: instead, there was the old incredulity at the astonishing matter-of-factness of it, of this man eating and talking before him. It was knowledge that made the difference, he told himself again. Had he not known, he would never have wondered at the creation of this being, would never have watched his expression for flashes of likeness to Sarah, fleeting as shooting stars, would never have taken any more interest in him than in any other likeable man in his thirties. Blood, he concluded, as he had before, knew not itself; but knowledge of blood was all.
Martin talked about his charity in Afghanistan and the work he hoped, one day, to do again. More than once Charles was on the point of telling him. He wanted to, wanted him to know. But he remembered what Matthew had said about not putting himself first, thought of what Sarah might want, and held back yet again. If he took that step he wanted to take her with him.
He came closest when Martin said: ‘I just don’t understand why Measures should be so frightened. If no-one cared enough to sack him years ago, they’re hardly going to now. And who’s going to blow the gaff, anyway? Not you, you’re too loyal to your old service. Not me, I’ve no interest. Not Sarah, she’s got too much to lose. Not this Sonia you mentioned, she’s probably like you and anyway, he doesn’t know about her. No-one would tell his dirty little secret, if he hadn’t had you arrested and tried to get me killed. He knows I’m not al-Samit. Is he just crazy or is there something else?’
‘When I was a student I read a judgement by a fourteenth-century judge on mens rea. He said, “The devil alone knoweth the heart of man.” We’re no farther forward.’
‘That was when you knew Sarah and Measures together, wasn’t it? When you were students? I keep forgetting that. She told me once, or maybe you did.’
‘We all knew each other, yes.’
‘Maybe lifelong jealousy on his part, then. It was obvious you always carried a candle for Sarah.’
‘It was, was it?’ Now, he thought, right now.
But Martin went on. ‘Anyway, it’s the future we need to worry about. What are we going to do? Apart from get another bottle.’
They plotted that Charles would confront Nigel, with Sarah’s help, if she agreed. Martin would go back into hiding but with contact arrangements in place; Sonia would act as go-between and cut-out. If Nigel refused to resign at Charles’s first attempt, then he and Martin would confront him together, threatening to go public.
‘And if he still refuses?’ asked Martin.
‘He won’t.’
‘But if he does? Going public would have consequences, especially for me and my practice.’
‘If we say it, we’ve got to mean it. But you’d have more to lose, of course.’
‘Not as much as he has. Besides, there’s always the memoirs.’
After dinner they walked out into the car park and stood gazing at the Teme where it rippled around the garden and under the bridge. It was a moonless, cloudy night with few stars.
‘You must be over the limit,’ Martin said.
‘Maybe.’ It wouldn’t be the first time. He could book himself in for the night, which would mean paying for two hotel rooms – three, with Martin’s – and doing without his clean clothes and shaving kit, which were in the Feathers. A slightly greater security risk, from Martin’s point of view. Anyway, being a few points over the limit didn’t worry him as much as most people he knew might think it should. He put that down to his generation. Across the road, where a lane ran parallel to the river, he glimpsed a figure move between two parked cars, a white Mondeo and a Range Rover. ‘This was a Roman settlement,’ he said. ‘They built the first bridge here.’
‘Here? Where this one is?’
‘I’m not sure. The original might’ve been downstream.’ They sauntered over to his car to get the rest of Martin’s gear. Charles opened the boot and passed him a webbing belt and pouches. ‘Anything else?’
‘Just my sticks.’
Charles handed him the two metal telescopic walking poles and shut the boot. Someone shouted from close by. There was more shouting, but he couldn’t distinguish what was said except for the word, ‘police’. Martin moved and said something. Afterwards, and for the rest of his life, Charles would struggle in vain to recall what it was. There were several sharp cracks and he felt a shocking blow to his left shoulder, as if someone had hit him with a cricket bat. He staggered to his knees, then was knocked flat and winded, his right cheek and ear hitting the tarmac
hard. A great weight fell on him and he saw and felt no more.
Later, in his hospital bed, he tried to get his memories into chronological sequence. It was difficult, because his only connected narrative was what people told him had happened, and he couldn’t always distinguish between what he remembered and what he imagined as a result of being told. He definitely remembered the ambulance interior, but not whether it was as he was taken in or taken out. He remembered more shouting but not by whom, when or what. He remembered bright lights and a man’s voice saying, ‘We can’t leave them like that, we’ve got to turn one over.’ He remembered pain around his eye and in his back but not whether it was at the time or afterwards, when he came round and had thought he must have been playing rugby again.
Then there was a pleasant, timeless period, a dreamy state in which he drifted in and out of consciousness, couldn’t concentrate on anything and didn’t mind. It was like floating. Another voice, a woman’s, said, ‘Tell the police they’ll just have to wait. He’s not ready yet.’
Next came the long monotony of consciousness, discomfort and weakness. He was by himself in a white room overlooking the hospital car park with houses beyond and hills in the distance. By resting his eyes on the hills he could almost persuade himself he was in them, or forever approaching them. He couldn’t get Housman’s line about blue remembered hills out of his head, but nor could he remember the rest of the poem. Everything else in his head was bad. Mostly he thought about Martin.
Various doctors came and spoke to him and, one day, the police. On another day the door opened and instead of food or a change of dressing – an uncomfortable procedure – it was Nigel Measures. He wore a green tweed jacket, with green jumper and brown corduroys. He looked unconvincing in country clothes. He was smiling.
‘Just popped up to see you, Charles. Didn’t take long. Wanted to see how you are, how you’re getting on. And to thank you.’
Charles began the slow business of sitting up. ‘Thank me?’
‘For tracking down al-Samit. Gladiator. Pity it ended in his death. But at least you’re okay, thank God. Ricochet, wasn’t it? Nothing broken, they tell me. Didn’t penetrate too deeply because of the splayed-out shape. Is that right? Plus your black eye, of course. Quite a shiner you’ve got there.’ Still smiling, he pulled up the chair. ‘Apart from that you’re looking well. You were lucky. We all were.’
Charles controlled himself. ‘Except for Martin,’ he said. He managed to make it sound almost jocular.
‘Gladiator. Yes, well, most unfortunate, as I said. Understandable, from the police point of view. Dark night, him holding what looks like a gun; then when they challenge him he doesn’t drop it but turns towards them with it. They’re entitled to shoot if they think there are lives at stake, including their own. There’ll be an enquiry, of course. Police Complaints Commission and all that. Always is when they shoot someone. They’ll want to talk to you, find out what happened from your point of view. What d’you think you’ll say? Hard to remember clearly, I suppose?’
His energy was as relentless as his smile. Charles let him talk, feigning greater weakness than he felt and watching the play of Nigel’s ceaselessly mobile features. Now was not the time; but it would come. He pictured Nigel skewered against the white wall, writhing silently. He didn’t argue with anything, not even the identification of Martin with al-Samit. Especially not that.
‘Must be upsetting for you,’ Nigel continued, ‘given Gladiator’s origins. I know your relationship was purely professional, and that he knew nothing about it, about your being – about your relation to him and all that. That’s right, isn’t it?’
It was the first time Martin’s paternity had been mentioned between them. Possibly Sarah had told him. More likely, he had read it in the file, in the secret annex that recorded his own dealings with French intelligence. Charles replied slowly, as if with difficulty.
‘No, he never knew. Makes me sad to think of that.’ He paused, then added. ‘You knew all about it, of course.’
‘God, yes. I was briefed on it ages ago by Matthew Abrahams. He thought I should know about it when I was saying I wanted you back on the case, to find Gladiator.’
Another lie, as pointless as it was ineffectual. The man inhabited a web of lies. Charles wanted to ask what he’d done with the secret annex but it was more important to appear unthreatening. He nodded.
‘You heard he’d died, Matthew?’ Nigel continued. ‘Two days ago. Not unexpected, of course. But sad all the same, very sad.’
Charles stared. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Nice obituary in the Times. What he deserved. But well done to you, Charles, with Gladiator. Very proper. Must’ve taken a great deal of self-discipline not to tell him. Very professional of you. I wonder what made him turn against us. Any ideas?’
Charles was still thinking about Matthew. Hardly unexpected, as Nigel had said, but the permanent loss of his friend, that wise and playful mind, would take him a while to absorb. However, there was no time now for the luxury of private indulgence, as Matthew himself would have put it. ‘I wasn’t in touch with Martin when he converted,’ Charles said. ‘How was he when you saw him, just before he went back?’ That was an unnecessary pin-prick, but he couldn’t resist it.
Nigel folded his arms and glanced out of the window. ‘Fine. Quite calm and collected, determined to go. He said nothing about his motives when you were with him last? Nothing religious, no ideological confession, no outpouring of hatred of us or the west or anything? No hint of why he’d become al-Samit?’
Was Nigel always this good an actor? Charles asked himself. He thought of their late-night conversations in Oxford, the early morning encounter on the Cherwell bridge, that awful dinner at the Elizabeth. Self-dramatising, perhaps, like nearly everyone at that age. But the Nigel of those days had not acted to deceive. Well, he wasn’t the only one doing it now. It was essential that he should think that his invented identification of Martin with al-Samit was unquestioned. ‘Nothing much in the way of outpourings,’ he said. ‘Not that I remember now, anyway. Mind you, I seem to have forgotten a lot, from what people tell me.’
Nigel brightened. ‘You trained him well, I’ll say that for you. Too bloody well.’ He laughed. ‘But I was so relieved when I heard you weren’t seriously injured. Not only for your sake, I admit, but for all of us. Mine as well. Even more explanations to the Police Complaints Commission if you’d died too. Now you can tell them the whole story yourself, as I’m sure you will, very competently.’ He paused and then, as if flicking a crumb from his sleeve, asked: ‘What d’you think you’ll say to them?’
He is transparent, Charles was thinking, clear as water. Perhaps he always had been. The puzzle was not so much how had he got away with it, but why had he not done even better for himself? People so often took you at your own evaluation; you could get almost anywhere by flattering and smiling. But the most adept were often also the most vulnerable to the same tactic. Charles forced a weak smile.
‘Just pleased I didn’t let you down,’ he said. ‘My first thought when I came round was that I’d cocked it up. I thought Martin must’ve attacked me. He wasn’t always an easy man to be with. As for the PCC, I’ll confine myself to what happened that night, what little I remember of it, just as I did when the police interviewed me.’
‘They’ve spoken to you already, the police?’ Nigel’s tone was sharper.
‘Yesterday or the day before. Can’t remember which. I had the impression their main concern is to avoid blame for shooting another unarmed man. They’re not interested in the background or anything in the past. Especially the deep past.’
Nigel relaxed and nodded encouragingly. ‘The deep past. A good phrase for all that’s dead and buried.’
Like Martin, Charles thought, thanks to you. Except that Martin was not yet buried but lying chilled in a mortuary drawer, a piece of evidence. He couldn’t help picturing it; the more so because Martin had been such a warm and vigorous presence.
Nigel left with the assurance he wanted, knowing nothing of Sarah’s visit the previous day. It was that which had given Charles the strength to hold back what he had most wanted to say. Self-control had always come naturally to him, perhaps too naturally; but this time she had provided crucial, if unintended, reinforcement.
He had been dozing when she arrived and had awoken to see the door closing behind her. He struggled to sit up, embarrassed by his awkwardness and his black eye. She was wearing jeans with long brown boots and a suede jacket.
She smiled and laid some flowers on the bedside table. ‘Don’t. Stop it, Charles.’
‘Stop what?’
‘Trying to sit up. Just keep still. You’re all right as you are. I was warned about your black eye.’
‘Tea?’
She shook her head and pulled up the blue plastic chair. ‘How do you feel?’
‘Fine. I could go home, really, as soon as the anaesthetic wears off completely. Keep falling asleep. I’ll go as soon as I feel I can drive.’
‘Don’t even think of it, it’s too far. Anyway, your car needs repairing, Nigel told me. It was hit by bullets and the police have taken it away. Nigel says the office will get it back and repair it for you.’
It hadn’t occurred to him that the Bristol might be damaged; nor had he realised until then that he no longer had the keys. ‘How bad is it?’
‘It’ll be fine when it gets over the anaesthetic.’
There was a pause, which for him was filled by the presence of Martin. ‘You heard what happened?’
She nodded.
‘The police firearms team thought he had a gun,’ he said. ‘They’d been briefed that he might have. But it was his walking sticks, which he’d just taken out of the boot of my car. Most of the people they shoot seem to be unarmed. There was that man in London who came out of a pub carrying a chair-leg in a plastic bag. They shouted at him from behind and he turned round. To see who they meant, presumably. It’s what people do. I expect that’s what Martin did.’
