A Line in the Sand

by Gerald Seymour

  He thanked her for bringing him the clothes. She went out of the bathroom and closed the door after her. She had not said a single word.

  Duane Littelbaum paused, took his handkerchief and mopped the sweat off his forehead. He swayed, clung to the rail, and climbed again. He had a horror of heights, but beyond the horror was a cruel sense of obligation. He had to climb the tower. He went up the narrow, worn, spiralled steps; if he had slipped he would have plunged. The door at the top was bolted and the bolt rusted. He couldn't move it. He balanced on a smooth, worn step, then heaved his shoulder into the door. It gave, pitching him forward, through the doorway, on to the small square floor of the tower's top.

  The wind snatched at him. His coat was lifted and his tie was torn from his waistcoat. The drizzle made his eyes smart.

  He looked around him and clung, with both hands, to the low, crenellated wall.

  From the vantage-point, he gazed down over the village.

  His hair was ripped to a tangle. He could see the road that was the one point of entry into the village and the lanes off it, the clusters of homes, and the patchwork shape of the green. He saw the house, and the roof of the small wood hut behind it. He saw the endless, disappearing seascape.

  The house, its position, was of small interest to Duane Littelbaum. He sank to his hands and knees and crabbed around the square floor space, never dared to look vertically down.

  There were the marshlands.

  Dull, yellowed, reeds and dark-water channels between them, the marshlands were to the south of the village behind the sea wall, and to the north-west. Reached by the one road, the village was an island surrounded by the old reeds, the dark water and the sea. He estimated that each of the great marshes was a full three thousand metres long and a minimum of a thousand wide. He saw the thick cover of trees around the fringes of the marshlands, the tracks between the marshlands and the village.

  In spite of his fear, without thinking, he straightened his back, lifted his head and his nostrils flared. He snorted the air into them.

  He was satisfied.

  He had posed the questions and had answered them.

  He crawled back towards the flapping door. He took a last look at the marshes and saw the gulls, white specks, meandering above them. He wedged the door shut after him, and came down the spiral steps with his eyes closed.

  He heard the clergyman's voice.

  "Everything went, the bells, the lead, the best-cut stones. Sad, but inevitable. They have a history, the native people of this community, of great suffering. It makes for a cruelty and a self-sufficiency. The original church was lost because survival took precedence over principle."

  Littelbaum walked out into the rain and the wind. Markham came after him.

  "What do you want to do now?"

  "Go back to London."

  "You don't want to see the house, at least drive past it?"

  "No."

  "You don't want to meet the protection officer?"

  "Thank you, he'd be a busy man- well, he should be, he wouldn't want "tourists". No."

  "Actually, you hitched a lift with me. I had a day planned down here. I needed to see for myself."

  The interruption brooked no argument.

  "Are you a marksman? I don't think so. Are you expert at drawing defensive perimeter lines? I doubt it. There's nothing for you here. Don't sulk, Mr. Markham. You're a good driver always do what you do well."

  Markham unlocked the car, held the door open for him. Littelbaum felt aged, tired, cold. The tone of Markham's voice was resentful, the teeth of a saw on a buried nail.

  "So, back to London. I hope it's been a worthwhile exercise for you, Mr. Littelbaum -above and beyond lunch."

  "It was worthwhile. Can we have the heater on full, please? He's there, Mr. Markham. I saw where he is. It was like I could smell him."

  The bird ate the minced meat, stabbing down with its beak in quick, urgent strokes.

  Vahid Hossein had led her to the small clearing among the bramble and thorn, at the edge of the marsh, where the grass was short from the rabbits' feeding. Farida Yasmin did not know whether he had brought her there out of a sense of boastfulness, or whether he wished to share with her.

  His fingers were long, gentle and sensitive. She was behind him, within reach of him. He had sat her down, told her not to move and whistled into the late-afternoon light. The bird had come from close by, had materialized over the dead reed fronds, with a laboured flight. Now he stroked its head feathers with his fingers, and he used her handkerchief to clean the wound. The bird permitted it. She hoped it was not a boast but the demonstration of his wish to share with her a moment so precious. His fingers moved on the feathers, soothing the bird, and pried into the wound, and she saw the peace on his face.

  It was as if, that day, she had slipped from the mind-set of Farida Yasmin Jones. The identity of her Faith was discarded, as a snake's skin was shed. That day she had she knew it and it did not trouble her reverted to the world of Gladys Eva Jones.

  She had stolen a car.

  Any kid from her comprehensive school knew how to steal a car. It was the talk in the canteen at lunch, and in the grounds in midmorning break, and on the bus going home. She had listened in disgust, years before, as boys, girls, had talked through the theory of how to do it, and she had remembered what she had heard. She was a thief, had broken the rule of the Faith as it had been taught her, and she did not care. In the parking area beside the small railway station where the London commuters left their cars for the day, she had felt a raw excitement and it had been so easy. The hairpin into the lock of the blue Fiat 127 because all the kids always said that the small Fiat was the simplest to take and the stripping of the covering, the marrying up of the ignition wires. She was a thief; a few seconds' work with a hairpin and she was no longer the virtuous Farida Yasmin who could recite the Pillars of the Faith, pages of the Koran, and had once been the favoured pupil of Sheik Amir Muhammad. She had not felt shame, only excitement.

  She watched him, watched his fingers on the bird, watched the rifle lying half out of the sausage bag on the far side of him, and the excitement was a toxin in her bloodstream. It was now a part of her. She recognized that it had nothing to do with the Islamic faith to which she had dutifully converted.

  For all her teenage and adult life, Gladys Eva Jones had craved to be noticed, to be valued. He had listened thoughtfully when she'd told him that the police had been to her workplace, and had nodded his quiet appreciation when she had described the theft of the car. She sat and watched him, the bird and the gun. She knew what he planned to do that night, had even seen the man he would kill and could remember each feature of that man's face. The excitement the knowledge engendered in her was a liberation. At last, Gladys Eva Jones was a person of importance. The sensation was as fresh as morning frost to her, compared to the dull tedium of her parents' home, and the shunned, shut-out existence at the university. Her hand hovered over the hair at the back of his head. She thought of the empty boredom of Theft Section at the insurance company, and she stroked the hair on his head with the same gentleness as he caressed the feathers of the bird.

  Her hand trembled, as if she sensed the danger of what she did. The bird flapped away in heavy flight, and his eyes followed it, watching its wing-beat.

  Soon he would be gone with the rifle, and she would wait at the car for him to return. He needed her, and the knowledge of it gave her the confidence to slip her hand down on to the skin and bristly hair at the back of his neck... She knew the man who would be killed that night, and the house where he would be killed, and the excitement coursed in her.

  There had been an older boy in her street who had a .22 air rifle. It was fired on wasteland where a factory had been demolished. Many times she'd gone after him to the waste ground and hung back, had never qui4e had the courage to ask him if she could fire it. She'd dreamed at night about the chance to hold the rifle, aim it, and fire it. One summer evening, the boy had shot a
pellet against a passing bus, and the police had come and taken it away so she'd never had the chance. But, for the lonely, unpopular girl, the rifle had stayed in her mind as the symbol of the boy's power. On the waste ground with his friends, he swaggered when he carried it. The dream from childhood was roused. One hand still stroked the hair at the back of his neck, but her other hand moved in slow stealth behind his back until her fingers touched the weapon's barrel, which protruded from his bag. She felt its clean smoothness and the tackiness of the grease, and her fingers slid on the oiled parts. She imagined it against her shoulder, and her finger against the trigger, and she touched the sharpness of the foresight, and she thought of the sight locking on to the chest of the man in the house on the green. Her hand moved faster, but more firmly, on the nape of his neck, but her fingers glided in gentleness on the cool metal of the rifle's barrel. He could see what she did, but he could not snatch the rifle away from her because that movement would frighten the bird.

  She said, very quietly, "I should be with you."

  "No."

  "I could help you."

  His free hand had moved to hers. She felt the roughness of his hand covering it. She would be with him, following him, and sharing with him. She had, in truth, no comprehension of the thudding blow of the rifle stock against a shoulder, or the ear-splitting noise of the discharge and the soaring kick of the barrel. She only understood the power that the rifle offered. The pain was in her hand. Relentlessly he squeezed her hand down on to the sharp point of the foresight, crushed it until she struggled to remove it. His eyes never left the bird. He freed her hand and she quietly sucked the blood from the small, punctured wound. She kneaded the muscles at the back of his neck.

  "I go alone," Vahid Hossein said.

  "Always I am alone."

  "I am here to give you anything you need," Farida Yasmin whispered.

  Meryl heard the impertinent, lingering blast of the bell.

  She was in the kitchen, locking the legs of the ironing board, with the heap of washed and dried clothes in a basket at her feet. She started for the door to still its insistent shrillness. It surprised her that Frank had not gone to answer it. She heard the voice of Davies, the detective, speaking into his radio in the hall. Stephen was with her, at the kitchen table, methodically writing in his school exercise book. In spite of it all he was doing the weekend work that his class teacher had set. That was her next looming problem: Monday morning, and no school. Frank shouted down from upstairs that he was on the toilet. Davies was at the door, waiting for her to come, and assuring her that the camera had picked up one of the village people. She switched off the iron.

  All Frank had told her was that Martindale, the bastard, would not serve him.

  Davies opened the door, and she saw Vince, smelt his beer breath.

  She was behind Davies.

  "It's all right, Mr. Davies, it's Vince. Hello, Vince God, don't say you've come to start on the chimney."

  Vince was the most fancied builder-decorator in the village. There were others, but he was the best known. He was a great starter and a poor finisher, but those with a leak or a slipped tile or the need for a sudden repainting of a spare bedroom for a visitor knew they could rely on him. And he was a popular rogue... The Revenue had looked at him twice in the last seven years, and he'd seen them off.

  He was in a constant state of dispute with the parish council because of the builders' supplies dumped in the front garden of his former council house, now his freehold property, behind the church. Anyone who could lay a hand on a Bible and say they would never have a rainwater leak or a slipped tile or the need for fast redecoration could call him a fraud, a bully, a botcher. There were not many. Small, powerful, his arms heavily tattooed, he was everybody's friend, and knew it and exploited it. What Vince believed in, above all else, was the quality of his humour. He had no doubt that his jokes made him a popular cornerstone in the village.

  Meryl tittered nervously. The mortar was coming out of the brickwork on the chimney. It was just something to say.

  "Surely you're not going up there?"

  "Actually, I've come for my money."

  "What money? Why?"

  "What I'm owed."

  "Frank paid you."

  "He paid me two fifty down, but there was more materials I've got the bills." He was routing in his trouser pocket, dragging out small, crumpled sheets of paper.

  "I'm owed nineteen pounds and forty-seven pence.~

  "You said it was inclusive, for Stephen's bedroom, everything for two fifty."

  "I got it wrong. You owe me."

  "Then you'll get the extra when you come to do the chimney."

  "If you're still here, if pigs fly, if-' "What does that mean?" He'd been in her kitchen. She made him four pots of tea each working day and gave him cake. She'd left him with the key when she'd gone out and he'd been working in the house. She'd trusted him.

  "What on earth are you talking about?"

  "If you haven't moonlighted going, aren't you? I'll be left, owed nineteen pounds and forty-seven pence, and you'll be gone. I've come for my money."

  She choked.

  "I can't believe this. Aren't you Frank's friend? We're not going anywhere."

  "No? Well, you should be. You're not wanted."

  She stuttered, "Go away."

  "When I've got my money."

  The detective moved without warning, stepping forward two, three paces. He caught at Vince's collar and had him up on to his toes. When the fist came up Davies caught it, as if he was handling a child. He twisted it hard against Vince's back, pivoted him round and marched him back down the path. She heard everything Davies said into Vince's ear.

  "Listen, scumbag, don't come here to play the fucking bully. Go back to that godawful pub and tell them that these people aren't leaving. And don't ever bloody come back here."

  With a jerk of his arm, the detective pushed Vince down on to his knees in the roadway, forced his face into the deepest and widest of the puddles and kept hold of him until he stopped struggling, lay still in submission. Davies released him, and stepped cleanly back to watch Vince crawl away.

  She leaned against the wall beside the door. Davies came back in and closed it quietly behind him. She hadn't noticed it before but Frank's trousers were too short for him and his sweater was too tight. She put her hand on his arm.

  "Thank you I don't suppose you should have done that."

  "I don't suppose I should."

  "Frank would have called him a friend he went up on the roof in a storm last winter."

  Very gently he took her hand from the sleeve of the sweater. She didn't look into his face, didn't dare to. She looked down at his waist and the gun in the holster.

  "What you have to understand, Mrs. Perry, it's all totally predictable. It's not peculiar to here, it would happen if you lived anywhere. It would be the same if you were in a suburb or a city street. It's what people do when they're frightened. Maybe you'll find someone out there who has the guts to stand in your corner, and maybe you won't. What you have to remember, they're ordinary people, people you'd find anywhere. You can't expect anything else from them."

  The lavatory flushed upstairs.

  "I'll get the ironing done. How long will it be till they come for Frank?"

  "Thank you, the stuff's a bit tight on me.

  He disappeared into the dining room. In the kitchen her Stephen was still doggedly writing in his exercise book even though he would have heard each word Vince had said to her. Outside, the night was coming and the curtains were tightly drawn against it. Vince had always been so good with Stephen, had made him laugh. Would they come that night for Frank, or the night after, or the night after that? She shook and tried to hold the iron steady.

  In a vile temper, Fenton returned to Thames House from his lunch. It should have been lunch and shopping with his wife, if the wretched man had not cancelled lunch for Monday, and insisted his only opportunity was Saturday. Fenton had bartered wi
th his wife: lunch with the academic and then shopping, with her having access to the full range of his plastic.

  He came up to the third floor, was told there was nothing new of note, then went into his office to shed his coat and spill his micro tape-recorder on to the desk. The lunch had further confused him, and the expensive shopping had wounded him.

  He had not used this source before, but the file said he was sound. The academic was white-haired and ginger-bearded, a professor of Islamic studies at a minor college at the university, had a face lined like a popular ski-run, from Sudan. The confusion, from the soft-voiced lecture, had fuelled Fenton's temper. He listened to the tape again.

  "What distresses me is the hostility of the Western media and the Western "orientalists" towards the Islamic faith. They are servants of imperialism. They stigmatize, stereotype and categorize us, and any scholar of the Faith of Islam is labelled with the title of "fundamentalist". There's no denying it is a term used with hostility. If we judged Christianity by the excesses of the Inquisition, or if we took the Fascist elements in Zionism to reflect the faith of Judaism, you would be horrified. If we talked always about apartheid and Nazism as examples of Christian belief you would rightly criticize us but when a zealot hijacks an aircraft he is labelled an Islamic fundamentalist. If a lunatic shoots children in a school, do we call him a Christian fundamentalist? You live by a double standard. You follow slavishly the American need to have an enemy, and you plant that title, without the slightest reason, on the faithful of Islam."

  They had been in the students' canteen, a dreary cavern of a building. They'd colleded salads and fruit juice from a self-service counter, not a bottle of wine in sight, and the academic had persistently questioned the woman at the till to be certain there was no alcohol in the vinegar that accompanied the salad.

  "You distrust us in your midst, even those Muslims who are British citizens. Our colleges for converts in this country are monitored by the security forces why? Because we are different, because we live by other criteria? Is it that you fear believers and the standards to which they dedicate their lives? A Muslim will not steal from you, will not seduce your wife, will not go to prostitutes, and yet the strength of our decency is regarded as a threat so we are harassed by the political police. Everything you talk about involves this threat, but it is a figment of your imagination. We are not drunk in the street and looking for violence, we are not hooligans. Would a virtuous young woman, an Islamic convert, join in a criminal conspiracy of murder? The very idea is preposterous and shows the depths of your prejudice."