The Silent War

by Andreas Norman

  Suddenly, the car reverses at speed out of its space. She thumps the side and manages to glimpse red rear lights and a dark saloon sweep by her. She tumbles to the side. For a moment, she lies on the concrete floor staring at shiny black paint and tyre treads.

  She crawls to her feet, groaning with pain. The car rushes through the car park. She runs. A moment later a silver-grey Volvo also sweeps up the exit ramp. She has to catch up, is all she can think, but she can’t remember where she parked her own car. She holds up her key. There: two lights flash.

  She sees the black car just as it drives into the Cortenbergh tunnel. Traffic is heavy, there is no space to make individual choices. The pain in her hip is pulsing more strongly now. When the two lanes merge on a curve she also catches sight of the silver-grey car, a couple of seconds behind the black one as it reaches the mouth of the tunnel. Heather is in the left-hand lane; she won’t choose the exit returning back to the city centre, but probably won’t turn off towards Schaerbeek either as it’s all too easy to get stuck in suburban streets. Heather is heading out of the city.

  Gustav calls. She can see she already has three missed calls from him. She just makes it through the large crossroads before the lights change, undertaking three cars in the inside lane and increasing her speed to the sound of ill-tempered honking behind her. ‘Where are you?’ Gustav’s voice fills the car. She doesn’t reply; she needs to concentrate on the traffic and slipping into the gaps, adjusting her speed, following a rhythm she can’t control.

  ‘On the N23, heading for the airport.’

  The margins are fine. In the afternoon traffic there are countless souls boxed up in their vehicles and she must be careful. The swift flow can quickly turn into a stationary armada of hot metal.

  She barely makes it when the black car turns off at the roundabout near Zaventem, heading not for the airport but onto the road south and away from Brussels. The silver-grey car has dropped out.

  She races along the road heading away from the city. Where is she going? Two hours away is the French border, then Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris.

  Palisades of trees drum past. The high speed transforms reality in an onrushing flicker. She drives using gentle movements and an even speed, ten seconds behind the black car. What should she do if she catches up with Heather? She will hurt her. Vengeance is mine; I will repay. She has no other thoughts, she is filled with a sense that everything is happening according to unshakeable laws.

  She has to brake sharply when she encounters a lorry inexplicably overtaking another lorry, and she gets stuck behind them. The lorries’ dirty containers loom above her like a wall.

  She just catches sight of Heather’s car turning off.

  Gustav calls again: has she made contact? He wants her coordinates and needs her to describe the car. A black saloon, she can remember two letters from the registration. She is on the R0 heading south.

  No one is in a greater hurry than an escaping spy. Everything is about being able to act without hesitation, without making mistakes. Something about the resolute way Heather is driving suggests she knows exactly where she is going. The British Embassy and London are presumably working to evacuate their resource, out, away, to safety abroad, where she will disappear without trace under cover of a new identity.

  She looks in the rear-view mirror but no one seems to be following her. When she looks forward again the car is gone.

  It can’t simply have disappeared, she thinks, slowing down, afraid to make the same mistake as the men before.

  There. A narrow road.

  She brakes hard. A van that has been behind her pulls out into the outside lane and passes her while pressing its horn. She turns into the small gap into the greenery.

  A private road with a strip of grass up the middle. No more than a tractor track.

  The trees vault over the road. She drives slowly until she reaches a crest. The black car is nowhere to be seen, but it must be here, there was no other way to leave the main road. She turns off the engine.

  When she bends down she feels the familiar shape of the pistol-butt under the seat. She pulls out the weapon, puts on the holster and opens the car door.

  The woods are silent. Dark shadows, small trees.

  After briefly hesitating, she follows her instinct. She gets out of the car and goes into the trees, following the slope down through the brushwood. She stops, listening in the grey light.

  She reaches an overgrown ditch and heaves herself out of the tall grass with difficulty. Pain cuts into her hip.

  She doesn’t spot them before she straightens: two large red-brown stallions standing right in front of her in a paddock. Their heads are watchfully raised, their muscular bodies unmoving. Their eyes are like wet black stones. They are looking at her.

  She hates horses, they frighten her. She can’t read them, she doesn’t understand them.

  One of the animals snorts with a dull, panting noise. Perhaps they see her as a threat. She doesn’t belong here.

  A short distance from the field is a stable. Beyond the paddock is a neat lawn running up to a house. A manor. There are large oaks growing beside the house. The tops of the trees tower above the lawn and house and frame everything in a way that gives her the unreal sensation that she is looking at a postcard.

  The horses snort.

  There is no one within sight. There is no one visible by the house, in the windows. She pulls out her mobile and sends Gustav a message with her GPS position – it is reassuring that he knows where she is.

  She strides up a gravel path, walking slowly towards the house. Her weapon is heavy under her jacket. Her steps crunch loudly in the silence. She is visible, vulnerable.

  Someone is taking good care of the stable. The gravel has been raked with great care into straight lines. The green lawn is immaculate.

  The horses snort behind her, smacking their lips with disdain.

  The front door of the manor opens. A middle-aged man with a sandy shock of hair, wearing chinos, a shirt and moss-green gilet, steps out. He raises his hand in greeting and smiles broadly. Then he comes down the steps and walks towards her.

  The man has a fleshy, blotchy red face.

  ‘Bonjour,’ he calls out. ‘Welcome!’

  In her state of extreme vigilance, she feels as if everything is in slow motion.

  ‘Hello,’ she says, before falling silent.

  She glances past the man towards the house and trees, turning her head and looking across the lawns. Heather is nowhere to be seen.

  The man in the gilet walks smiling towards her along the gravel path.

  ‘I’m so glad you could make it,’ he says.

  The man’s gilet is open and he reaches into it with his hand for something. She tenses, prepared, but he merely pulls out a pair of sunglasses.

  They shake hands. The man has a firm grip, he is stronger than he looks.

  ‘We’re going to show you the whole property. But I thought we would start inside.’

  He says this calmly and cheerily, but she doesn’t perceive him to be calm.

  She looks over her shoulder. There are the horses.

  The man gently touches her forearm.

  ‘Well done for finding us.’

  The man is talkative and says it is difficult to find them from the main road. If coming from the north you can hardly see it, there is a sign but you can only see it from the other direction.

  ‘This is a truly beautiful house,’ he says, pointing at the manor. ‘Built in the early nineteenth century. We have several interested parties.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  The man stops short.

  ‘Me? I’m the estate agent.’

  He smiles, and as if setting her on the right track, then says:

  ‘I spoke to your husband the other day. He said you were coming today. To see the house.’


  He touches her arm.

  ‘Shall we go inside?’

  *

  The man politely holds open the door. She enters a hall with square flagstones. A beautiful manor residence from 1825, he says, as if introducing her to an actual living person. Eight bedrooms, all in excellent condition.

  She walks quickly through the house, entering a large farmhouse kitchen with glittering detailing, before returning to the hall before the man catches up. She casts a glance up a staircase and then goes into the dining room. The man hurries after her. ‘Isn’t it magnificent?’ He smiles. ‘Late Empire-style,’ he adds.

  The rooms are light and peaceful – peaceful in the way that rooms only are when no one has been in them for many years. There are heavy velvet curtains in the windows, and she can perceive the smell of dust and moth-proofer. She turns to the estate agent.

  ‘Can I take photos?’

  ‘Naturally. Take as many as you like.’

  She quickly pulls out her mobile and takes photo: the man’s face is visible as a reflection in the glass. It isn’t completely focused, but is identifiable, like a composite.

  ‘It’s marvellous, isn’t it? The seller is amenable to including the furnishings too,’ he adds. ‘Since it’s a probate sale . . .’

  She hushes him.

  The horses neigh. But there was another sound at the same time, far fainter, inside the house. Clicking.

  Like steps on floorboards.

  She rushes through the dining room and into the living room filled with heavy antique furniture before stopping to listen again.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Who?’

  The man looks troubled, he seems to think she is completely incomprehensible.

  She manages to glimpse a shift in one of the mirrors hanging on the far wall, something dark moves rapidly through the reflection outside the house. She turns on her heel and runs to a window.

  Heather is running across the lawn.

  Bente falls headlong against the wall. The man crashes down on top of her, she stares into his contorted face. He reaches for her arms, trying to hold her down, and strikes savagely and hard at her face. She dodges and fumbles at her side. Her fingers close around something heavy. She swings towards his head and the object hits him under the eye. He falls to the side. She strikes him again and it is as if a small twig were being snapped when his nose is broken; the man falls backward, bawling.

  A glass ashtray. She discards the bloody glass lump.

  She hurries outside and runs across the lawn. The stable, she thinks.

  The horses’ heavy panting fills the darkness. The warm smell of dry grass, manure and the pungent odour of horse urine. She can hear the animals, their massive bodies moving in the stalls. Perhaps they sense her fear. Then she finds a light switch.

  The room is illuminated by a glaring light. A cement passageway with a row of stalls. Beside her, one of the animals is staring at her. A black eye, unblinking and fixed. The oblong head nods.

  The two stalls furthest away are empty: the doors are ajar. She imagines breath being held: someone who daren’t breathe. She listens.

  The pistol is heavy in her hands.

  Heather’s terrified face gapes at her. Motionless, she stares up at her from the stall where she is sitting, hunched like a child who has lost all hope.

  Her thoughts in recent days have been incessantly focused on this woman who has forced her way into their family like an impalpable demon with the power to destroy her life. But the woman sitting there on the dirty stable floor is no threat, she is just a frightened woman whispering: ‘Please, don’t shoot. Please.’

  22

  The cone of subdued light hovers above the wooden table. Jonathan blinks at the light, barely awake. He must have forgotten to switch it off, he thinks to himself. Then he realises his mobile is vibrating.

  It is Robert. His voice is strained and angry, and he makes no apology for calling in the middle of the night. ‘We have reviewed the report,’ he says. ‘It’s not possible to verify much of it.’

  Fear pierces him like a long needle. The answers Khaled gave don’t match the overall picture, he hears Robert say. ‘And what bothers us,’ and now he can hear Robert checking his voice and making an effort not to sound too angry, ‘is that a lot of it is total drivel. He’s lying to you.’

  He sits up. He can’t simply accept that the interrogation was unsuccessful. Which parts can’t they verify? he asks while reaching for his clothes. Robert sighs at the other end of the line and wearily rattles off parts of the report.

  He knows that Khaled didn’t lie, he can tell when someone isn’t telling the truth. He tries to explain this to Robert, who merely hums in irritation. He notices that he is defending himself and the man, as if they are bound together and about to sink into dark water together.

  ‘We don’t have time for this,’ says Robert.

  ‘Just let me talk to him.’

  ‘No, the others will have to take care of him.’

  He knows, they both know, that their conversation is essentially a one-way communication, the result of a series of decisions made in the Ministry of Defence by the powers that be, and that Robert is merely conveying the joint decision. He knows that he can’t stand against the enormous power of that kind of bureaucracy, but he doesn’t want to – he can’t simply let it happen.

  It is just after one o’clock. He dresses quickly and hurries through the house and across the yard.

  Khaled is lying curled up on the basement floor beneath the harsh light of the fluorescent tube. Jonathan shakes him abruptly.

  ‘What have you done?’

  The man squints at him, scared.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me the truth before?’

  The man sits up and looks at him, perplexed.

  ‘Your answers don’t check out.’

  They each sit on a chair. He pulls out the screen and scrolls, showing him a picture of a commander. Khaled gave them a name and an address, but there is no commander called that.

  ‘I think he’s called that.’

  ‘You think? That’s not good enough.’

  ‘I may be wrong. I tried to remember, I promise.’

  ‘Don’t you understand what you’ve done?’

  Perhaps the man really has been truthful and told them everything he remembered, but if none of it is true, then what does it matter? The heavy feeling that everything is hopeless makes him slump in his chair. He can’t bear the thought of what will happen next, and it is intolerable that he can do nothing to prevent it.

  A wild, desperate resistance awakens within him. In spite of it all, he is still the British Government’s representative – the soldiers must obey him. We’ll sort this, he says to himself, looking at the screen. He scrolls to a section of the report that Robert said they had been unable to verify.

  ‘Tell me what this commander is called and where he lives.’

  The man stares at the picture and says the same name as before.

  ‘That’s the wrong name.’

  ‘Then I don’t know.’

  The man spreads his arms out. He says he is willing to do everything he can to help, everything. And then he repeats the same name as before. But that name isn’t correct, according to Robert. It is so bloody frustrating that he doesn’t know what to do.

  ‘Focus. Try to remember.’

  The man sobs.

  ‘Please, help me. I’m just a taxi driver. I didn’t know any of them . . .’

  He tries to calm the man down – there, there – patting him on the shoulder while his own hands tremble. He shows him a new photograph and asks for a name and address. The man tries to gather his thoughts, but the fear is not helping; he opens and closes his mouth, shakes his head, he doesn’t know.

  ‘I can’t protect you if you don
’t answer.’

  Then the moment he has been trembling at the thought of arrives. He hears the door open and the soldiers come sauntering down the stairs. He gets up and tells them to wait outside, but they ignore him and direct their attention at the captive. With an enormous effort he quashes his quaking anxiety and repeats himself in a sharp and brusque tone:

  ‘Wait outside.’

  They pause; it is as if he has managed to penetrate through their assuredness and stop everything. But then the sergeant regains the upper hand with a scornful snort.

  ‘Move.’

  ‘No, we’re not done.’

  He stands in the sergeant’s way, like a child in the school playground encountering a superior enemy but still not giving way.

  When the soldiers step forward and pull the prisoner’s clothes off, he knows the man is lost. But he says nothing. He steps to the side, what else is he supposed to do? The prisoner is standing in the middle of the concrete floor, a soft and pale body with bare, shrivelled genitals, and he thinks: If I stay in the room they won’t do too much harm to him. His presence will hold them back, he persuades himself. It will act as a reminder that Her Majesty’s Government is watching their actions, that they are serving their country, that certain standards are expected.

  The soldiers are tired and irritated. One of them walks up to the prisoner and, as if bored, punches him hard in the stomach. He collapses. Another soldier bends down and pulls a noose over his head, attaching it to a drain so that he is soon standing on all fours with his skull close to the concrete floor, anus facing up. Everything occurs wordlessly, like silent theatre. He wants to intervene and turns to the sergeant, but can’t form the words.

  When the soldiers bring a bucket of water and pour it over the prisoner, he backs up against the wall. Strictly speaking, it is of Khaled’s own making, he tells himself while the sergeant pulls out a bundle of towels – the same white ones as in the linen cupboard in the house.

  *

  The sergeant crouches by the captive’s head and explains to him in English that he will give them the names and addresses of everyone who has travelled in his car. One of the soldiers interprets. The man groans. The air stinks, liquid runs along the floor. The soldiers breathe out, sitting on boxes. Jonathan keeps out of the way, furthest away in the room. The man is huddled in a pile and tethered to the drain. The sergeant pushes his side with his foot and makes him stand on all fours again. He holds the small screen under his nose and shows him a photo.