A Line in the Sand

by Gerald Seymour

  Vince, the vulgar little builder, had telephoned. Had they seen their guttering? Had they heard about the crane? What about the hut? Did they know about the guns? Would they be wanting him cash, if they didn't mind to check their guttering?

  Coming home from work, Jerry Wroughton had seen the police car parked close to the junction on the main road at which the lane branched off to the village. He'd thought it was good to see them there, watching for thieves and speedsters, and yobs without tax discs or insurance. He'd driven down Main Street, had seen a second police car coming slowly towards him and thought that it was high time decent, hard-working, law-abiding folk had proper protection. An empty car had been parked outside the neighbours'. He'd been tired, he'd wanted his tea, and he'd been sitting in front of the television when Vince had telephoned. He'd gone upstairs. From the back-bedroom window he could see down into the neighbours' rear garden. He saw the hut and the policeman walking slowly round their lawn. The sight of the machine-gun in the policeman's hands had sent Jerry Wroughton into the bathroom where he had vomited into the lavatory. The killing zone was separated from his own property by a low fence of light palings. He rang Barry Carstairs, and then the fear was worse.

  For the next hour, his wife doggedly insisted that it was his right to protest and told him what to do.

  It was the worst surprise that had ever confronted Jerry Wroughton.

  Her car had provided the lead they required.

  It was a two-room flat, one room for the bed and the wash-basin, one room for the easy chair, the television and the cooker. The lavatory and the bath were shared with others on the floor below. The detectives had taken apart every drawer and cupboard, exposed every possession of Farida Yasmin Jones and found nothing.

  The Rainbow Gold file had carried an old address with neither a number not a street for forwarding mail. The university records had failed them. The father had cursed and the mother had sulked, but they could not produce a current domicile for their daughter. The detectives hadn't a workplace and so had no national insurance number to feed into the computers. The driving-licence address had not been updated.

  But they had the car's registration from the vehicle-licensing files at Swansea. Four men, with the registration, had foot-slogged round the back-street garages of Nottingham.

  None of the possessions in the flat, scattered from the drawers and cupboard on to the floor, had produced what they searched for. The detectives had been told to look for evidence of commitment to an extreme fundamentalist Islamic sect, but the possessions were those of an ordinary young woman, one of thousands, working for an insurance company. They had her pay slips on the table.

  A list had been drawn up of every motor-repair yard qualified to issue an MOT certificate of road worthiness All they had was the registration of her car. To get into the garages' records, they'd had to promise that the evidence uncovered of VAT fraud and Revenue scams would be taken no further.

  They'd rolled back the carpet in the living room, torn away the stuck-down vinyl in the bedroom and prised up the floor boards with jemmies each of the four detectives was familiar with failure, but it always hurt. They were sullen, quiet, surrounded by the debris of the young woman's life.

  They had nothing to show that this ordinary young woman had clasped a new faith, or had made a self-justification for a hatred of her own society.

  The last chance was the entry-hatch into the rafters of the building. They lifted the slightest among them into the space with a torch to guide him. They could hear his body movements above them. As they made a play at tidying the flat, replacing the young woman's clothing, they heard his shout of triumph.

  A suitcase was passed down through the hatch.

  Laid out on the table of the living room was a leather-bound volume of the Koran wrapped in spotless white muslin cloth. There were the careful notes of a student, handwritten, listing the five Pillars of the Faith and their meaning, neatly folded clothes that they recognized, and the head scarves At the bottom of the case was a packet of film negatives. The detective sergeant held them up towards the ceiling light.

  "Well done, lads. That'll do nicely."

  The darkness was his friend. But the quiet was a greater friend than the darkness.

  Vahid Hossein sat cross-legged. He had heard a fox call behind him, in the trees, and the shriek of an owl. He listened for each shift of the water-fowl, dippers and waders, in front of him. The bird was close. He did not need his eyes to see it: his ears had located it, and he knew it edged closer. He heard cars but they were a long way off. The only clear sound was of a dog barking in the far distance.

  When he had come back to the place where the sausage bag was hidden, he had found that the bird had tried again to tear at the rabbit carcass and not had the strength. This time, feeling with his fingers, through the darkness hours of the evening, he pulled off small pieces of the bloodless flesh, slipped them into his mouth and chewed to soften them, then tossed them towards the sounds of the bird. Each time he threw the chewed meat to the bird he drew it closer to him. By the morning, he would be able to touch it, smooth his fingers on its feathers. It was important to Vahid Hossein that he should win the trust of the bird through his help.

  He thought of the marshlands at night and the bird. Later, when he was at peace, he would plan and think: he would put from his mind the white-skinned legs of the girl and the fall of her breasts, and make the plan. It was the same quiet he had found in the desert, in the Empty Quarter. His wife, Barzin, in their small house in the village of Jamaran, had a fear of darkness and of silence, and he could not change it: she would leave a light on outside the open bedroom door. It was harder, when he had left the desert and the Bedouin whose loyalty he had won, and driven on the streets past the barracks of the Americans, to make the plan and to think. The best times were when the quiet and the darkness of the Empty Quarter cloaked him, and he would be back there within two weeks to complete the plan and site the bomb.

  If Hossein had lunged, he could have caught the bird by the wing, the leg or the neck -but he would have lost its trust. Then he could not help it. If he helped it, the peace would come. In peace he could plan and think.

  The plan at Riyadh, for his last bomb, thought through by Vahid Hossein and accepted by his brigadier, had been complex. The adaptation of the petrol-tanker lorry to hold 2,500 kilos of commercial explosive had been carried out in the Beka'a valley of the Lebanon. The explosives and the detonation leads had been loaded, the time switch had been fitted. The lorry had been driven into Syria, through Jordan and across the Saudi Arabian frontier. Five days after leaving the Beka'a the lorry had been parked fifty metres in front of the eight-storey residential block used by the Americans. The bomb had been set to explode and the driver had run to the back-up car. It was a complex plan, but no thought had been given to the alertness of the sentry on the roof, who had raised the alarm as soon as he saw the driver run. Nineteen Americans killed, 386 injured, but many more would have died without that sentry's advance warning.

  For that small mistake Hossein was blamed only by himself.

  At peace, his mind clear and rested, in the darkness of the marshes, he thought of the time he should attack his target, now protected. At the change of the protection shift? In daylight or at night? In the middle of the shift? At dawn or at dusk? He chewed the meat and threw each piece nearer to his body, always luring the bird closer.

  The bell rang.

  He glanced at his watch. Blake would come to take over from Davies. But there had been only one ring, sharp and persistent, unlike the three Blake and Davies used. The bell went on, endless. Perry was watching television, the story of the renovation of a wildlife park in the Himalayas, the sort of programme that made him forget where he was, what had happened to him. Stephen was sitting on the floor with his arm on his mother's knee. Meryl was sewing.

  He didn't think, and stood up. The bell was still ringing as if a finger was jammed on it. He was in the doorway between the
living room and the hallway when Davies came out of the dining room, pushing back the bottom of his jacket to reveal the pistol in the waist holster.

  The last thing the lorry men had done, after the laminated plastic had gone over the windows, was drill a spy hole in the front door. Davies didn't seem fussed by the bell, took his time. The bell ring pierced the hall, too loud for him to hear what Davies said into the button microphone on his jacket lapel. Perry understood:

  the camera covered the front door, the monitor was in the hut. Davies was clearing the visitor with the men in the hut.

  "It's your neighbour."

  "That's Jerry, Jerry Wroughton always on the scrounge. Probably wants-' "Do you need to see him?"

  "He's a good friend."

  Davies switched off the hall light and unlocked the door. Jerry Wroughton's finger slackened off the bell button.

  "Hi, Jerry, you in the business of waking the dead?"

  Then Perry saw the clenched mouth, the quivering jaw -hadn't ever seen Jerry look so famous and he smelt the whisky.

  He'd been about to ask his neighbour to come inside.

  He thought Jerry Wroughton was remembering what he had rehearsed, the mouth flapping without words as if the memory was slow coming. Meryl had said that Barry Carstairs had read off notes.

  "What's the problem, Jerry?"

  In the dark hall Perry went sideways as if to see his neighbour better, but Davies drifted across to stay in front of him, shielding him.

  "Come on, Jerry, spit it out."

  "What's going on? That's the problem. What's happening?"

  The poor bastard, sent out into the night by Mary, had forgotten his lines.

  "Say what you want to say that's our way, yours and mine say it."

  It came in a torrent.

  "I come home I find you under guard. Police in your garden, police with machine-guns. I talk to Barry Carstairs you're on a death list, the kid's been put out of school because of the risk. Who's thinking about me, about Mary, about the twins? What's the risk to us?"

  "Come on, calm down."

  "You're all right, you're bloody laughing! What about us? What protection have we got?"

  "Jerry, you're upsetting yourself. Believe me, you don't have to. Just head on back home, sit in your chair, and-' "You've got a problem, it's for you to fix it, it's not our problem. You made your bed, you lie on it."

  He tried to be soothing and conciliatory. He thought he owed that to a good neighbour. Right, so Mary had primed him with drink and nagged, and Jerry had gone all pompous, but he was still a proper friend. He rocked on his feet and breathed deeply, which was what he always did to control a rising temper.

  "What are you saying, Jerry?"

  "You've no right to bring your problems to our doorstep. Right now our children are sleeping a few yards from where you've got guns protecting you. Who's protecting them? Who's protecting Mary when she's in the garden at the washing-line, when Beth and Clive are playing outside or don't they matter?"

  "There's been a professional assessment of what needs to be done. They'd have considered-'

  Davies stood between them like a statue, impassive. He didn't contribute an iota of support.

  "What good's that to us? We've done nothing wrong. We've done nothing to need protection. Whatever your quarrel is, it's not ours.

  "If they come for me, they'll have the right address. Is that your worry? That they'll get the wrong house? No chance!" He laughed, couldn't help himself. The image came into his mind, so fast, of the turbaned mullah with the beard, carrying the assault rifle, knocking on doors in the village and going into Dominic's shop, calling up the ladder to Vince, into the pub, asking for directions.

  He shouldn't have laughed. Jerry shook, quivering with fear and anger just as Perry had, a long time ago.

  "All I can say, Jerry and I don't get told much is that I'm in their hands, and they're the experts. We're all in their hands."

  "That's not bloody well good enough!"

  "What is good enough?"

  Jerry Wroughton stood his full height. Spittle bubbled at his mouth. It was the moment for which he had needed the cocktail of whisky and his wife's nagging. Davies was between them.

  "You should leave just go."

  "Where?"

  "Anywhere just get the fuck out of here. You're not wanted."

  "Since when? I thought you were my friend."

  "Best thing you can do is go be gone in the morning."

  "I thought friends stuck together, in good times and bad. Don't you want to know what I did, why the threat's there?"

  "I don't give a damn what you did. What matters to me is my family. I just want you out."

  He didn't care any more. There was a sickness in his throat, and he realized the shallowness of what he'd assumed was a valued friendship. There were plenty of other friends, with depth to them. He might just talk about it in the pub tomorrow, and they'd all laugh as he described the gutless hen-pecked prig, Jerry Wroughton. For long enough, on his own doorstep, he'd tried to humour the man. His temper snapped.

  "Go home and tell Mary that they offered me relocation and a new life. I chose to stay. I told them that this was my home, with my family and my friends... Friends."

  He stabbed his finger past Davies's elbow, towards Jerry Wroughton's heaving chest.

  "Are you listening? Friends. I may not get support from you, when I'm up against the wall, but I'll get it from my true friends, and I've got enough of them. Meryl and I, we don't need you, either of you. Go tell her that."

  The telephone rang behind him. He realized, at that moment, that he could no longer hear the television. Meryl would have turned the sound down: she and Stephen would have heard every shouted word.

  He walked away and Davies closed the door behind him.

  "He's a pathetic bastard."

  "You called him a friend, Mr. Perry. You have to face it, people get cruel when they're frightened."

  "I've friends here, believe me, real friends."

  "Glad to hear it."

  He picked up the telephone in the kitchen.

  She was the only one left at the new cluster of desks down at the far end of the work area. The consoles were covered, the desks were tidied, all the lights were off except hers.

  Geoff Markham came out of his cubicle and locked his door after him. The red-haired woman didn't look up from studying the illuminated green square and speaking soundlessly into a telephone. There was a ribbon of light under Cox's door, but the senior journeyman often did that sloped off home and left his room lit so that the lesser people might believe he still beavered.. . Vicky was expecting him at her place for a verbatim of the interview, but Markham wasn't in the mood for an inquest.

  He wandered towards the woman, towards the halo of light on her hair. He wanted to talk, wanted his feelings massaged. If she hadn't been there he would have gone out of the front doors on to the Embanj(n-lent, sat on a bench and stared into the river, watched the barges and the ripples. He waited until she put down her telephone.

  "Hello."

  She didn't look up.

  "Yes?"

  "I just wondered can I get you anything?"

  "Are you the tea-lady?"

  "Can I help in any way?"

  She said brusquely, "No."

  "If it's not too secret..." he giggled'... what are you doing?"

  "Pretty obvious, isn't it, or weren't you listening? The American's stuff was superb. Add light complexion to an English-speaking accent. It could equal the child of a mixed marriage. He's put at late thirties. A mixed marriage, maybe forty years ago. An Iranian marries an Englishwoman. That's what I'm looking for. It might be on file if the marriage was over there the FCO should have it because probably the consul would have been notified. If it was over here then it's harder but possible. Is that good enough?"

  He felt a rare shyness. She was older than him. With the white ceiling light bathing her face he could see the first lines cutting her skin and the sli
ght crow's feet at her eyes. He couldn't face Vicky and her questions. He thought that, not so long ago, she must have been beautiful.

  "Does that give you time for a drink, before they close? Sorry I don't know your name."

  "I'm Parker."

  It scratched in his mind.

  "Parker?"

  "Cathy Parker."

  "From Belfast?"

  She turned away from her screen. She looked up at him and her glance was withering.

  "I am Cathy Parker, "from Belfast", yes."

  "We used to talk about you."

  "Did you?"

  "The instructors used to lecture us about that bar, escape and evasion, the bar full of Provos and you taking them on."

  "Did they?"

  "It's a legend there, what you did in the bar."

  "You want to know something?"

  "Of course, please." What Cathy Parker had done in the bar up on the hill above Dungannon, East Tyrone Brigade country, when she'd been on covert surveillance, had been identified, taken by the Provos, was held up by the instructors as the single best example they knew of the will to survive. She was a legend.

  "Tell me.

  She said, "It was all for nothing. What mattered was my tout. I lost him. I pushed him too far, and I lost him. Did the instructors tell you that? If you'll excuse me..."

  "Have you time for a drink?"

  "I have you haven't. Hang around here and you'll end up pushing paper in triplicate, badgering night-duty archive clerks, errand-running for those useless farts, sucking your bloody conscience, scrapping for a place on the promotion ladder. You'll be sad and passed over, and always have time for a drink. That what you want?"

  "Where should I be?"

  "Down there, where it's at, with the principal. If you don't mind, please, fuck off, because I want to get this boring crap finished with and get home. You shouldn't be whining around with has-been "legends". Get down there. Nothing is ever decided here they think it is, and strut around as if they actually pull the string3. They don't. It's down there it'll be decided. Body to body, as it always is. Or is close quarters too tough for you? You're a lucky bastard to have the chance to be a part of it, if you're up for it."