by Paul Torday
‘I surrender myself to Her Majesty the Queen and her authorised representatives,’ he said suddenly, speaking out loud for the first time, his voice a little shrill. ‘You are not an authorised person, Mr Gaunt. I want to surrender to the persons below. I demand to be taken into custody. I know my human rights.’
His voice caught the attention of Nick and Bas below. I heard Nick shout: ‘Gaunt, where the hell are you? Who’s that talking?’
They must have spotted the doorway, because I heard the sound of hurrying footsteps. I ignored them. I was now close enough to Aseeb to see that he was shaking. His dark brown eyes were fixed on mine and I could see the beads of perspiration running from his hairline down his face. He inched back so that he was standing on the edge of torn concrete. He spoke again, almost pleading:
‘Please stay where you are, Mr Gaunt.’
‘I have a question,’ I told him. The words had come into my mind when I saw him. At last I knew what I wanted to ask. I wanted to ask what the last ten years of my life had been about. I wanted to ask why all those people had died in Baghdad; why Sergeant Hawke had been blown up in Afghanistan; why Adeena had to die. I just wanted to know what the point of it all was.
Aseeb looked past me, his eyes wide, the whites showing all the way around the dark brown irises. He was willing the other men to appear. I could hear them clattering up the stairs. As I looked into his eyes I knew he could never give me an answer to my question. So I asked him something else: ‘Are you ready to die for what you believe in, like Adeena did? Are you ready?’
He did not answer. I think he was beyond speaking then. I pushed him lightly on the chest and he fell backwards into the gloom. A second later I heard the thud of his body landing on the concrete. I looked down. It didn’t seem probable that he could have survived such a fall.
Nick and Bas arrived beside me so suddenly that for a moment I thought the three of us might follow Aseeb over the edge.
‘What the hell happened here, Gaunt?’ Nick said, steadying himself. ‘Where’s Aseeb?’
‘I’m afraid he fell,’ I said. ‘He’s down below.’
Twenty-Two
She wasn’t even from Afghanistan.
She was ready to blow herself up for a country she didn’t belong to. How could someone do that?
I asked Nick that question during one of the many debriefing sessions we had after our return from Middlesbrough. These took place in his offices above the parade of shops. This time there was no transport on offer: no black Audi, not even a minicab. I took the train and then walked.
The main office always seemed to have the same atmosphere of tension and irritation I had observed on my first visit. People sat with their heads down; phones kept ringing all the time. Nick seemed a little less tired on these subsequent visits and he had shaved and put on a clean shirt. Maybe his routine had quietened down since I last saw him.
On my last visit, he gave me a cup of coffee, watery as usual, and brought me up to date with events.
‘You’ll be relieved to hear that the inquiry into the death of Adeena Haq is now officially over,’ he told me. ‘We kept her married name out of the papers. She was shot by trained police officers in the course of their duties. As a result they prevented a second, very serious, terrorist outrage outside Lancaster House. You are not mentioned and officially you don’t exist.’
So that was the end of that. No doubt Arthur and Martha would get a medal. Nick saw the relief on my face and added, ‘The same goes for Aseeb. His accidental death while seeking to evade arrest is also a matter of record.’
He waited for me to comment. When I didn’t, he continued, ‘We wanted to talk to that guy, Richard. He could have told us a lot about who paid him, and where the money came from. You say it was an accident. That’s what I’d do too: stick to my story. But no more chances, Richard. If someone drops dead from a heart attack on the other side of the street from you, we will assume it was you who did it and come after you.’
Nick paused to allow his point to sink in. Then he continued in a dispassionate tone: ‘Of course, if we’d arrested Aseeb he’d have had his lawyers all over us and we’d have had one hell of a job proving anything. He was never caught near the action. It must have been Amir who collected Adeena and took her into central London. Aseeb was already far away. Still, we’d have liked the chance to talk to him.’
‘Why was Adeena so ready to die for a country she didn’t even belong to?’
‘She never had a chance to think straight,’ replied Nick. ‘Her father was one of the original hard-core anarchists in the événements of 1968. Her mother had been brought up in the camps in south Beirut. Those camps were shelled and bombed by the Israelis, by the Christian militias, and sometimes by the Lebanese army. With parents like hers, what chance did she ever have of seeing the world any differently?’
He paused for a moment, then added, ‘We see a lot of people like her in our files. In her late teens she was dragged around the tribal areas of Pakistan and the mountains of Afghanistan. She lived among al-Qaeda supporters and after the CIA killed her parents, they were the only family she had.’
‘How come they let a woman do their dirty work for them?’
‘The Taliban might not have allowed it, but AQ will use anyone they can get. Other fundamentalist groups have used women as bombers. Look at Hamas. There was even a woman who called herself Umm Osama Bin Laden and who started a woman’s brigade for al-Qaeda.’
‘What happened to her?’
‘We haven’t heard from her lately.’
‘What about Aseeb?’ I asked.
‘We think he was a fixer: not al-Qaeda, not Taliban. He was in it for the money. The latest theory from our analysts – all their best work is explaining why something went wrong, rather then telling us what’s going to happen – is that AQ wanted to make this attempt on the president in London because of the terrific propaganda. You’ve seen the papers since it happened?’
I hadn’t. I’d been living the life of a recluse.
‘Well, they’re full of articles saying we should pull out of Afghanistan. Aseeb and his friends didn’t really care whether they got their man or not. It was the publicity they wanted.’
‘But Adeena said the Taliban were after her?’
‘And they may have been,’ said Nick. ‘The Taliban don’t want to get rid of the president. They think his government is doing a great job, doing their recruitment for them. The World Bank says Afghanistan is the fourth most corrupt country in the world. That’s how the Taliban get their foot soldiers. They may well have been after Adeena.’
We both fell silent. As an explanation, this was barely satisfactory, but it would have to be enough. All the people who could have told us more were dead.
‘What are you going to do now, anyway?’ asked Nick. He seemed to have given up trying to extract any further information about Adeena and Aseeb.
‘I’m working at a jobcentre,’ I told him. It was the only job I’d been able to get. Jobs were hard to find these days, even for those with qualifications. I had none: or at any rate, the qualifications I had were not valued in the civilian world. Nick laughed incredulously.
‘Is that right? Is that really what you want to do with the rest of your life?’
‘It’s a job,’ I told him. That was about all you could say for it. It was a job, and one in which my almost total lack of suitability for civilian life hadn’t seemed to matter. It got me out of the flat, and paid me a wage. If I had sat around in the flat I wouldn’t have been able to deal with the regret and the anger I still felt over Adeena’s death: feelings made even worse because I still did not know quite what to believe. So I went to work and volunteered for all the overtime I could get, and came home and slumped in front of the television, then went to bed. The main thing was not to think.
At first I felt I had been betrayed by her. After a while I realised that whatever else she had done, Adeena had been true to her own beliefs. She had manipulated me, she
and Aseeb between them, to give her the opportunity she had sought. I had been an accident. When they found the invitation to Lancaster House in my flat, the game plan had been changed. That was why she had come back to me: in order to use me.
In the manner of our times I sought to distance myself from what I had done. I attempted to look at the events of the last few weeks as I would once have looked at any other operation when things had gone wrong; not turned out quite as expected; or had, in fact, been a monumental disaster. We try to pretend that we can learn from our experience, with the irredeemable optimism of those who think some lesson can be distilled from the endless rehearsal of folly.
So what had I learned?
I had learned not to say yes, when someone offers you ten thousand pounds to marry someone you have never met. I had learned that it’s a good idea to find out first what the catch is, when a good-looking girl turns up on your doorstep late at night asking for shelter.
So you could say that, as usual, I had learned nothing at all. The fact is I didn’t care. I didn’t care what she had been or what she had done. I wanted to remember her how she was during those two weeks we spent together. The rest of it I will try to forget.
In all of my life there has been only one true act of betrayal and it has nothing to do with Adeena. Nobody could have been truer to her beliefs, even though I know I shall never understand either her or them. What I have understood is that when Adeena turned to me in the courtyard outside Lancaster House, and smiled her smile at me, she was within seconds of what she believed to be martyrdom. So I too had no choice when it came to it.
I had grown used to the phone ringing and Nick’s voice on the other end of the line, instructing me to go to his office. I hadn’t really liked him, but he was company of a sort. He was my last link to Adeena, and the events of those weeks.
A week or two had passed since my last interview and I hadn’t heard from Nick, so I took the trouble to walk down to the little street in Wandsworth. The office above the parade of shops was now empty. The venetian blinds had gone, and ‘To Let’ stickers were plastered across the windows. A day or two later I called Nick on the mobile number he had given me. All I got was a message saying the number was unobtainable.
The weeks passed, and became months. I worked away at my new career, but its anaesthetic powers began to fade. It was no longer enough to do a job that gave me no pleasure, and to divide my time between a desk, a television set and the sofa I dozed on at weekends. I began to wonder how I would conduct the rest of my life. There was a lot of time to kill before I grew old and died.
My thoughts began to turn from the dead to the living, and to the memory of my own act of treachery two years previously. It was not the worst thing I had done, only the most unforgivable. In between trying to forget about Adeena, and wondering how long I could stick at my new job, I found myself remembering Emma. At first it was just now and then; soon it was every day.
I wondered where she was now, and what she was doing. Only a few months ago someone had asked me at Freddie Meadowes’ house whether Emma was now ‘free’ – free, that is, from my attentions. Free to be called up. Free to be wined and dined. Free to be taken into some stranger’s bed. She might even be engaged or married by now, although I thought some kind soul such as Ed Hartlepool would have told me if that had happened.
For a while I simply accepted the idea that Emma would have moved on and met someone else, someone more suitable than I was. Occasionally I pictured her with the imaginary ‘suitable’ man. He might be a solicitor, like her father or mine. He might be a local farmer or landowner. Of course, her new husband would have given her a comfortable home and perhaps a baby or two. I would have heard, though, wouldn’t I?
Why had I cut myself off from Emma? How had I managed to separate myself from my parents and my sister? What demon had possessed me so that I had lost touch with almost every single friend I had ever had? I knew that I had been damaged in some invisible way by my last few months in the army. I had read about so many other soldiers who had come home and gone off the rails. At least I hadn’t been sent to prison yet – although God knows how I had avoided it. Maybe it wasn’t my fault after all.
But in my heart I knew that I couldn’t just blame it all on the wars I had been in. I wasn’t even sure whether the fracture that had broken open deep within me was simply a consequence of the things I had seen; of the things I had heard; of the things I had done. When a stone shatters in the frost, is it because of the frost, or is it because the fault line was always there, deep inside the stone?
Maybe I should make an effort to get my life back, I thought. Maybe the scars – the psychic wounds of war – were fading. You never know. It could happen. Maybe I was going to be normal again one day. People got over things. If that was the case, then it was time to try to make something of my life instead of just drifting in and out on the tide.
One day a wholly unsurprising idea came into my head: ‘Why not call Emma?’
What harm could there be in that?
At least then I could deal with all these images – Emma with a husband, Emma with a baby. I would know whether they were true or not. I might call her, just to find out how she was. Of course, once she knew who it was on the line she would probably refuse to take the call, or hang up. But we might speak for a moment. She would tell me about her new job, or the new man in her life. It would be painful at first but after a while I would become used to the fact that Emma had found a life without me. Once we had spoken, I too could move on.
That was what I told myself.
When I rang Emma’s old number at her flat in Parliament Hill, there was of course no trace of her. The person who answered the phone had neither a forwarding address nor a phone number to give me. In the end I dug out her parents’ number from an old address book. I didn’t know whether her parents would even speak to me, let alone tell me how to get hold of Emma, but I couldn’t think what else to do. It was Emma herself who answered the phone.
‘Hello?’
Her voice was cool and distant: but the moment I heard it a picture of Em formed in my mind, as vivid as if she had been standing in front of me.
‘It’s me,’ I told her; then realising it had been two years since she last heard my voice, I explained: ‘It’s Richard.’
There was an intake of breath, and then a silence.
‘Don’t hang up,’ I said urgently. ‘I just wanted to find out how you are.’
After a moment she said in a low voice: ‘You ring up after two years to find out how I am? Why now? I can’t believe you’re doing this.’
‘I’ve been thinking about you,’ I said. ‘I just wanted to pick up the phone and make sure you’re all right.’
Another long silence, then: ‘I’m all right. But I don’t really want to talk to you.’
Then I said something that was quite unscripted: where the words came from I don’t know, but they were out of my mouth before I could stop myself.
‘Emma, I really want to see you again. Even if it’s just for a cup of coffee.’
She thought about that for a while.
‘I don’t know how you dare say that. You betrayed me two years ago. I had to close the restaurant and I had to sell my flat to pay off the bank. Now I’m at home, living with Mummy and Daddy like some pathetic spinster. The best part of my life has gone by. Then you ring up out of the blue and invite me for a cup of coffee as if nothing had happened.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’ve been thinking about this call for weeks.’
‘Well, the answer is no: I don’t want to see you again, not even for a cup of coffee.’
So that was that. I thought she would hang up then, but she didn’t. I could hear her breathing on the other end of the line.
‘Em … I just wanted to say how sorry I am. I’ve never stopped regretting what I did, and how I behaved towards you. I was off my head in those days, but I’m better now. I have a steady job. Don’t ask me what it is: you�
��d laugh if I told you. But I’m working. I’m trying to live like any normal person does. I guess that’s all I’ve got to say: I’m sorry.’
Once again there was no answer, so I filled the silence.
‘I’ll hang up now. I can see how distressing this must be. I didn’t want to upset you.’
Then a muffled voice: ‘Richard – you can ring me again, if you like. Only not now: in a day or two.’
She sounded as if she was in tears, so I hung up. I stared at the phone, wondering whether she would ring back, but she didn’t. Suddenly I was full of energy. I stood up and walked around the flat. What had I learned from the phone call? That she wasn’t married, she wasn’t engaged, she probably wasn’t even seeing anyone. Her parents lived in a remote part of Dumfriesshire. She must be bored and lonely as hell. I wanted to see her again. This time I would get it right. I would see her again and we would talk.
Maybe there was a chance. There had to be a chance that she still felt something for me. I could hear it in her voice. And if there was a second chance, this time I wouldn’t make such a mess of things.
The phone rang again and I picked it up almost before the second ring.
‘Emma.’
‘It’s not Emma,’ replied a familiar voice. ‘Sorry to disappoint you, Leader. It’s only me, Ed Hartlepool.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘How are you, Ed?’
‘Bored shitless. I’m in London for a few days. I’m thinking about going to the Diplomatic tonight, for a few hands of cards. Want to come?’
There were a thousand reasons why I didn’t want to go to the Diplomatic. I disliked the memory of that smoky, dark and inauspicious room, full of the mingled odour of perspiration and cigar smoke. I didn’t want to see the misanthropic Eric again, with his potato face and potato eyes. I didn’t want to see Bernie, or Willi Falkenstein. I didn’t really want to see Ed. I didn’t have any money to spare, especially for gambling. I had turned away from that world for ever and the thought of going back to it filled me with revulsion. That was all part of my old existence, the life I had put behind me.
