Rat Run

by Gerald Seymour

  Away to his left was the dark silhouette of a summer-house, in front of him the house with the half-lit lawn. He assumed there would be security beams, but there were woods at the back and he assumed also that foxes lived there and would roam to hunt, and predatory cats: security beams, safe to bet on it, would be set to catch the waist of a walking man to give foxes and cats free passage at a lower level.

  Malachy crawled from the shrub bed.

  He went on his stomach, hugging shadows, pressing himself low, as if he was a slug.

  As a focus point, Malachy took halfway between the window with the slat blinds and the window from which light poured. Down on his stomach he could no longer see the men, but as he came closer he heard low, indistinct voices. There was winter-dead creeper, maybe a clematis, climbing by the window where the curtains were open and when he'd reached the wall he edged towards it, eased up off his stomach and on to his knees, then stood and flattened himself against the brickwork. He heard the voice he remembered: 'I say so, Dad… Get rid of him, Davey.' Then his ears had been ringing from the impact of the kick. 'We don't want people like that in our close – and I'm surprised you let him get this far.' The voice was a murmur to him.

  'What's it called?'

  'Baltrum.' A quiet growl marked the difference of a second voice. 'It is called Baltrum. I think it suitable.'

  'You got co-ordinates for it, what the skipper'll need?'

  'Yes… Are you cold, Ricky? It is cold, yes?'

  The curtains were snatched at and drawn across the window. Light died on the grass, and the voices were lost. But, Malachy had only the frail outline of a plan, not thought through but made on the hoof. No rope, no binding tape, no plastic toy and no canister. He slid away. Past the slatted window was a lock-up shed, and he thought it would be where a lawnmower was kept, shut away for the winter, and where there would be fuel for it. He reached the shed door and his fingers found a smooth hasp, no rust or weakness on it, and a heavy padlock. There was the summer-house. Oil, rags – would they be in a summer-house? No plan.

  It was only reconnaissance. He needed control.

  Control was calm. There was the darkened summer-house as a place for a lie-up, a sangar from which to watch the building. For a moment, hand on the padlock he had felt a winnow of disappointment, but it was now wiped. He crawled on his belly round the edge of the grass then came to the decking ledge in front of the summer-house. His chest, his belly, his groin and his knees went up two steps and his fingers found the opened door.

  He was inside.

  He could watch from here, learn of the movement of the house. The house, the home of Timo Rahman who was the godfather of the city of Hamburg, was the last step of his journey. He crawled on old dried wood and… There were short pants of terror. His movement across the floor made a rumbling creak on the boards and the pitch of the breathing grew more frantic. He had been long enough in the darkness to see in the gloom. The pants came from the outline of a body, the head softened by a mass of hair. A girl or a woman… She was whispering to him but Malachy did not understand the words. If she screamed… Yes, Malachy, yes – what? If she screamed, if she brought the men from the house, if she screamed and he had to jump at the wires strung from the stanchions – what?

  He had never, in violence, touched a woman. If she screamed… What price his journey, what price his crusade? The voice had gone, replaced by a whimper of tears. A hand caught Malachy's shoulder. He went to tear it clear and realized in that moment that its grip did not threaten him. He felt the hand, a jewelled ring and a smooth ring. It held his, but not to restrain him. The woman sobbed softly and he loosed his hand from hers.

  He backed away, scraping his body across the boards.

  Outside, at the back of the summer-house, he chose his exit route. He reckoned he could jump from the roof of the building, could clear the wires that were linked to the stanchions. No other way. He clawed his way up, then slithered on the sloped roof and old leaves cascaded down. She did not scream. A woman had wept, had held his hand, and Malachy's thoughts blurred. Too soon, he jumped. Too soon because he should have allowed time to regain concentration. He scrambled to gain leverage and his shoes kicked air but he was short of the fence and the barbs held him.

  His fingers, grappling, caught the tumbler wire. His body swung. Brian Arnold had described it: the fugitive on the wire, the alarms screaming, the guards coming and the scrape of an automatic rifle being cocked. The wire held his coat, and he felt panic – so long since the last time, but as bad. He heard a door behind him snap open and the scream.

  The aunt hitched her skirt, shouted over her shoulder and ran.

  The light on the console by the door winked angrily on red.

  She thought her shout loud enough, from the kitchen, to be heard in the dining room, that it would bring the Bear lumbering, but fast, after her. She knew every button on the console and charged towards the sector of the fencing where the wire had been tripped.

  With a rolling stride, from her stiffened old joints, she crossed the lawn and as she came to the summer-house she saw, behind its low, sloped roof, the figure of a man struggling to free himself.

  She yelled again to the Bear.

  She was a tough woman, past sixty, but muscled.

  An upbringing in a mountain village bringing water from wells, heaving stones to make fields' walls, walking to a distant road where a bus sometimes came, enduring the harsh conditions of childbirth, burying a husband, had given her strength. Her years in Blankenese, watching over her niece, had not dulled her determination. She had no fear. At the wire, shoes flailed on a level with her head.

  She reached up, caught a shoe, lost it, then held the ankle. For a moment she clung to it, then it was torn away. She caught the hem of the long coat.

  The heel of a shoe banged against her forehead, dazed her. A toecap caught her mouth, split her lip, and she spat away the broken tooth cap. She clung to the coat. She heard the voice of the Bear. Her fingers clawed into the coat, and the man inside it writhed – and then he was gone.

  She had the coat, which sagged down and swamped her. It was a blanket on her head. As she threw it off, the aunt saw the body – a sharp moment

  – astride the fence and then he jumped. She stamped in fury, frustration.

  ***

  The assistant deputy commander broke the fall, and the breath squealed out of him.

  Polly grabbed the man's arm and pulled him up, her grip loose from blood spilling out. She heard Konig, cursing, follow her up the path between the fences.

  Slithering, stumbling, they reached the side road.

  The man she held started to struggle as if his own fall, on to Konig, had first winded him but now he fought for his life. Not in time. The arm she held at the elbow was dragged back and she heard the metallic click of handcuffs closing, then the belt of a fist into the man's head. They careered down the side-street and towards the lights of the main road.

  Konig gasped, 'There's a firearm, legally held, in the house. If we're found we're fucked – no questions – we're dead.'

  'Don't you carry a weapon?'

  'What? Use it in defence of a thief, an intruder?

  Grow up, child.'

  'A thief?'

  'An idiot.'

  They passed the gate and lights now shone down on the garden and the front of the house and she heard the confused yells behind the steel plates and the thickened hedge. Between them, they pulled the man, each holding one of his arms and he was limp.

  His shoes scraped on the pavement. What had happened coursed in Polly Wilkins's mind.

  Konig had parked his unmarked car at the main road. He had pointed out to her the camera half hidden by branches, on his orders in place for three days, and had murmured wryly that it was 'for statistics of traffic analysis, and in no way contravening the Human Rights of Timo Rahman by-intrusion', had explained that to go to an investigating judge for authorization would have risked involvement with a corrupt official. Th
ey had been in front of the house, walking briskly, when they had heard the first shrill shout. They had found the path between the fences and been drawn down it towards the yelling and screaming. When the struggle was at the far side of the fence they had stopped. He had come over, clothes ripping, had been on top of the fence, outlined against the night, then had dropped on to Konig. What she recalled most clearly of the man as she had lifted him was the smell of old, stale dirt.

  They reached the main road, turned the corner, and behind them heard the scrape of the gates opening.

  Doors zapped as they ran to the car. They pitched the man on to the floor space between the seats, and Polly went in after him. From the car's roof light, she saw the man's face, then Konig's door slammed shut and they accelerated away.

  She grinned. 'Not much of a return for all the drama, Johan. Your catch looks and stinks like a damn vagrant.'

  Dazed and numbed – as he had been once before -

  Malachy lay prone, not in a gutter but on the carpet of a car's floor.

  Against his face, holding down his head, was the smooth, warm, stockinged ankle of the woman. He did not know what havoc he had left behind him or what chaos lay ahead.

  Chapter Thirteen

  'My name is Malachy David Kitchen, and my date of birth is-'

  'We know your date of birth.'

  '-and my date of birth is the twenty-fifth of May, 1973.'

  'And your blood group is O positive, and your religion is Church of England. I think we have covered that ground.'

  They had taken his wristwatch, shoe laces and belt.

  The German swung the dog tags in circles. He sat hunched on the mattress, rubber sheeting around thin foam, on the concrete bench that was the cell's bed.

  The German was propped against the concrete slab, the table, beside the lavatory, and the woman leaned against the closed door and held the passport lifted from his hip pocket.

  'My name is Malachy David Kitchen, and my date of birth is the twenty-fifth of May 1973.'

  She said, 'And your passport lists your occupation as government service.'

  The German said, 'Your military number is 525 329.

  It is late, I want my bed, and you should tell me why you were at the house of Timo Rahman.'

  She yawned. 'What government service requires a man with British military identification to be at the home of Timo Rahman?'

  'My name is Malachy David Kitchen and my DOB is the twenty-fifth of May, '73.'

  The tags swung faster, their shapes blurred in front of him. His passport was now closed, held behind her back. His scratches from the barbed wire were not cleaned and they made little stabs of pain on his palms and thighs.

  He did not know their names because he had not been told them but he could assume the man was senior. They had taken him fast out of the car and had dragged him up the steps of a monstrous glass and concrete building. Police had hurried out of the protected reception area and had shown acute deference to the man, but had been waved away. He had been taken down two flights of stairs, along a corridor, then pitched headlong into a cell. They had followed him inside and the man had kicked the door shut behind him. He had half fallen to the bed, then had settled on the mattress. The storm of questions had begun. Over and over again, a repeated litany. When had he come to Germany? What was his business in Hamburg?

  Why had he broken into the grounds of the residence of Timo Rahman? He had taken as his focus point the barred ceiling light.

  'It's a simple enough question, Malachy.' She could not suppress another yawn. 'Come on, don't mess with us, not at a quarter past three. Why were you there?'

  The German had come close to him, knelt in front of him and swung the tags. 'What "government service" brings a British citizen to the home of the pate of organized crime in Hamburg, when that citizen has military identification but is dressed like a derelict and stinks of sleeping on the streets? What?'

  'My name is Malachy Kitchen, my-'

  'Oh, for Christ's sake! Don't you know how to help yourself?' Her shoes thudded on the cell floor in theatrical exasperation.

  '-date of birth is the twenty-fifth of May, 1973.'

  'You are in debt to us,' the German grated. 'If we had not been there to help you, they would have killed you. Killed you and dumped you where your body would never be found.'

  'Who sent you, Malachy?'

  'Who put you against Timo Rahman?'

  At the light on the ceiling, a fly came close to the bulb. For minutes it had circled the brightness, and he had watched it. His mentor at Chicksands, Brian Arnold, used to talk – if an audience could be found – on resistance to interrogation, and the stories were of time spent at Gough Barracks, County Armagh, and the experts he spoke of were not the relays of questioners from Special Branch but the men from the

  'bandit country' of Crossmaglen, Forkhill and Newtown Hamilton. The best of the prisoners took a point on the ceiling, a wall or the tiled cell floor, and locked their eyes on it. Sometimes a hundred questions and not one answer. He'd learned well over coffee in Brian Arnold's room.

  'My name is Malachy Kitchen…'

  She said she was dead on her feet.

  '… and my date of birth is the twenty-fifth of May, 1973.'

  The German pushed himself up off the cell floor, strode to the door, swung it back and allowed the woman through. It was heaved shut and the lock fastened.

  Why was he there? Why had he levered himself on to the top of the fence and jumped down clear of the wire at the home of Timo Rahman? Why had he climbed, in desperation, higher on the ladder? Images surged into his mind, like a nightmare. Worse than the insults had been the cloying kindness, the bloody syrup stuff, the understanding.

  16 January 2004

  'You've been very helpful, Mal, most co-operative, and I don't want you to think that your silence at most of the questions I've put to you in any way jeopardizes your position in the army. Your inability to answer is quite predictable and you show the well-known symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. We are not in the Stone Age, so we don't give elbow room to expressions such as

  "cowardice", or to "lack of moral fibre". We accept – it's taken us psychiatrists long enough to get there, and we've walked a hard road – that PTSD is a medical condition.

  Now, and this is very important to your peace of mind, there is only a remote possibility that you could face a court-martial and a charge of desertion or dereliction of duty. A slight and remote possibility but I'll do my damnedest to see it doesn't happen. My report will say this is as clear a case of PTSD as I have come across. Is there anything you'd like to ask me?'

  In civilian life, the psychiatrist worked for a health trust on the south coast of England, but for more than thirty years he had been a member of the Territorial Army. God alone knew now how his regular patients, back home, were surviving his six-month absence. In the medical unit attached to the division's headquarters outside Basra, he had the rank of colonel and headed the Battleshock Recovery Team, a small empire of a lieutenant, who was less than half his age, and two orderlies who typed and doubled as nurses.

  In the sprawling hospital in the seaside town, his caseload was overwhelming; in Iraq it was minimal. When a general or a brigadier came to inspect the BRT he'd sometimes joke that he felt like travelling round the combat units and touting for trade, but patients came infrequently.

  'Nothing to ask me? Well, that's not unusual. You've had a hard time and probably suffered some pretty cruel cuts but that's because of soldiers' ignorance of mental disturbance.

  It's all behind you. My promise is that we're going to get you right, get you back on track. You're not the first, and you won't be the last, but we're going to deal with it. You are not abnormal. Most importantly, Mal, you're not a failure. I emphasize it. Not an outcast or a pariah. You've had an horrendous experience but with time and care, and with the love of your family, you're going to come through it… I'm going to ask you to wait outside a few minutes while I dra
w up some papers that need your signature, and when that's done I'll call you back in. I urge you to remember very clearly what I've said – not a pariah or an outcast, but a patient with post-traumatic stress syndrome, not a failure.'

  He watched the captain stand and go, a stilted step, towards the door… Fascinating. In the last month he'd had an RAF corporal who had been spooked by night guard duty on the airstrip perimeter, and a lance-corporal chef from the Catering Corps who had been pressed into service for patrol and had frozen; two months before him there had been a clerk from Logistics who had sat on a Portakabin roof and refused to come down claiming that local cleaners, heavily vetted, intended to kill him… This fellow was the real thing, what the textbooks described.

  'Right, let's get some notes down, Donald.'

  His duty orderly settled at the computer, and the psychiatrist dictated a skeleton analysis.

  ' "From field reports, the patient seems to have suffered initially from convertive collapse, with consequent loss of limb movement. Brackets, I do not believe we are dealing with a malingerer or a faker of symptoms, close brackets.

  This became dissociative collapse, loss of contact with his environment and inability to relate to it." Take a paragraph.

  Donald, what did you make of him?'

  'I'd be going with what they said at Bravo, Colonel.

  Sounds to me like he just flipped his bottle.'

  'Hardly a medical statement. No, he's most interesting because he's a classic case. Could even be a paper in it, might get to be a lecture subject – no names, of course. Next paragraph. "From outside the family of the regiment he was serving with, so beyond the 'buddy' network. Probably, worth checking, poorly trained for being alongside an active-service unit. Asked whether his home domestic relationship was satisfactory, patient flushed and made no reply – all three make PTSD a top starter." I'm actually quite excited. People back home would kill to get their hands on him. We're rather lucky.'