He felt puny, insignificant and unimportant.
Geoff Markham walked beside the stream that wound ahead of him between the sea and the Southmarsh. Behind him it skirted the village before drifting inconsequentially into Northmarsh. The wind was up and had blown away the rain.
He was unimportant because he had not been telephoned the night before. He had been killing time at a piano recital twelve miles away, in another town; he had sat in ignorance at the back of a half-empty, draughty Baptist hall. His mobile telephone, of course, had been on, but the call had not come. A trifle of life would have been injected into the performance if his telephone had bleeped, but it had not… Davies had told him, an hour earlier that morning, of the night's events. He had seen the scorched grass where the milk bottle had ignited and seen the smoked slivers. Near to the new tree was the small patch of burned ground where the gas canister had detonated. Only an unimportant junior liaison officer would not have been telephoned. Davies had told him what was going to happen that day not asked~l him for his opinion, but told him. He had stormed away.
He was unimportant, he realized, because he did not carry a gun. The guns were what counted now. He was drawn towards
Southmarsh. The guns ringed the marshland, just as they were around and inside the house. It hurt him to feel the minimality of his importance. And no communication, either, from the little stinking bastard with the dogs. Markham didn't know where he was, what he did, what he'd seen and couldn't call him for fear of compromising his position.
There were two letters in his pocket. They were not typed up, or remotely ready for sending, but they were drafted in his handwriting. He thought, later, he would go to the police station and find a typewriter and envelopes. He had drafted the letters after the recital, back at his guest-house accommodation. Fenton had said, down the phone, fifty minutes earlier, "We're not a marriage-guidance operation, Geoff. If she wants to go, then I'm not going to lose sleep over it. But he stays, whatever. If you have to chain him to the floor, he stays." He walked towards where the little verminous bastard was, not that he would see him, but where he would breathe the same air.
The two drafted letters were in his pocket.
Dear Mr. Cox, I write to inform you of my resignation from the Service. I am taking up a position with a merchant bank in the City. I would like to express to you, to Mr. Fenton, to colleagues, my appreciation of the many kindnesses that have been shown me. My future employers wish me to start with them at the earliest possible date and I look for your co-operation in that matter.
Sincerely, and
Dear Sirs, I have received your letter setting out my terms of employment and find them most satisfactory. Accordingly, I have resigned from my current employers by the same post, and have requested the earliest possible date of release. I much look forward to joining your team and will advise you, soonest, of when that will be.
Sincerely,
Once they were typed up they could go in the afternoon post, and then Geoff Markham would no longer be unimportant. He walked on the path, turned a corner and could see, past a wild clump of bramble, the mass of the reed-banks, the dark water channels, and a ruined windmill that had no sails. The bright light played on the dead reed-tips, and the birds flew above the muddy banks.
"I wouldn't go any further. If you don't want a bollocking from a police thug, I'd stop right there."
He spun. To the right, a few yards from him, the man sat on a weathered bench. Markham recognized him, but couldn't place him. A dapper little man, thinning hair and a nervous smile, with binoculars hanging from his neck.
"Quiet, isn't it? Wonderful. But there's a policeman ahead with a vile tongue and a big gun." There was a chuckle, like that of a teenage girl but from the soft full lips.
"I'm watching the harrier. It's a joy to behold…"
The man pointed. Markham saw the bird, cartwheeling in awkward flight. He squinted to see it better. It was more than half a mile away, and its colours merged with the reed-beds. It was far beyond the windmill, over the heart of the marsh. He could see swans, geese and ducks on the water, but this was the only bird that flew and, strangely, its motion was that of a clumsy dancer.
"Incredible bird, the marsh harrier it migrates each spring from west Africa to here. It would have been hatched on Southmarsh, and then in the first autumn of its life it flies all the way back to Senegal or Mauritania for the winter. Then, come our spring, it returns. Comes back to us. I find that wonderful. Two thousand miles of flight and our little corner of the universe is where it returns to."
He remembered where he had seen the man. He had bought a sandwich two days earlier at his shop. Dominic Evans's name was over the door. That morning, Davies had given him, snarled them, the names of those who had been in the half-shadow, who had not intervened he was one of them.
"It comes back to us. Its trust makes for a huge responsibility. It can rely on our care and kindness."
"A pity, Mr. Evans, that Frank and Me~yl Perry can't rely on that well of care and kindness."
"What's remarkable this bird came back last week, and it was injured. It had been shot. I didn't thiril when I saw it last week that it could survive. It's flying, not quite at full strength yet, but it's hunting and it's getting there. It's almost a miracle."
"I said, Mr. Evans, that it was a pity Frank and Meryl Perry cannot rely on your care and kindness."
"That's not called-for."
"It's the truth."
"What do you know of ultimate truths?"
"I know that you were there last night, one of those who stood back and let the mob have its bloody vicious fun."
"You feel qualified to make a judgement?"
"I make a judgement on those who skulk at the back, don't have the guts to come forward."
"That's mighty high talk."
"I'm talking about cowards who know what is right, and stay silent."
"Do you want to know?"
"Do I want to hear a string of snivelled excuses? Not particularly."
"I am not proud of what happened."
"Frank and Meryl Perry need someone from among you bastards to hold out the hand of friendship."
"I don't know your name. You're another of the strangers who has invaded our little place. Till you came, we were just ordinary people living hidden and un achieving lives, we were like everybody else, everybody anywhere. We were not challenged… I don't know your name but, stranger, I am homosexual. Queer, got it? I live with my friend and I love him. But, I am discreet… I do not cause offence, I do not draw attention to myself. If I did then in this little place I would be labelled a pervert. I buy tolerance with my work as the village historian. I can tell you where the old shore-line was, and the old churches, and the old shipyard, all that stuff, but at least I take this place seriously. If I were blatant I would be ostracized… Yes, I should have spoken up for Frank and Meryl. I like them, but I'm a coward. Yes, I'm ashamed. So, yes, I go with the tide. But, it's like the sea and the history here. It makes for a sense of futility. Little gestures against the strength of the sea, over many centuries, have proved the worthlessness of man's efforts. We bow before the force of the inevitable."
Markham stared out over the marshland, and the peace that settled on it.
"You won't be here when this is over, stranger. We'll be left to pick up the pieces, and you'll have moved your caravan on where you can make judgements on other ordinary people. Is it satisfying work? You sneer at me because I didn't, publicly, offer my hand in friendship to the Perrys. Let me tell you no, listen to me. Twice, in the night when I wouldn't be seen, I've put my coat on and determined to walk to Frank and Meryl's door, and each time I failed to find the courage. Will you tell them that I'm ashamed of my cowardice?"
"No," Markham said icily.
He cursed himself for his cruelty. The man was gone, stumbling away. He wondered how he would have been if the challenge had faced him. The warm sun was on his face. Geoff Markham watched the flight of the bird and he had no sense of what was remarkable, what was a miracle.
"Do you know what, Barney?"
"What, Harry?"
"I think it's an away goal."
"Come again."
"I think the Yank's scored away from home."
Harry Fenton and Barnaby Cox stood at their adjacent office doors. Duane Littelbaum, flushed, yawning, had his feet up on the central table, scanning a newspaper.
"What's that mean?"
"Got his leg over with Miss Prim Parker."
"You sure?"
Cathy was at her place at the console. Her eyes were on her screen. She never looked up, didn't glance at the soles of his shoes.
"Look at her. You ever seen her so feminine? God, next she'll be wearing lipstick, mascara and eau-de-toilette. Ever seen her so becomingly coy, even shy? You noticed Geoff Markham's door, the number of the day on it? Just before you came in, she scratched out one day and wrote DAY SIX, and underneath she's put, "The worm has turned," and I haven't decrypted that cypher, but she and the Yank sniggered like kids. As an expe~enced, senior, dedicated intelligence officer, I'd say the evidence points to last night's naughtiness."
"Not many been there before."
"Last chap, so he said, who tried to get his arm up her skirt, that Adonis from D Branch, said she damn near broke it off at the elbow. Brennard claims he was there, admits she was so stressed out that she didn't know who he was. Well done, the Yank."
"He's been useful, but I wouldn't want Mr. Littelbaum, or his people, to believe we are overly dependent on them… if you're with me. I wouldn't wish them to believe we're in their pocket, or not competent in our own theatre."
A wolfish grin played at the sides of Harry Fenton's mouth.
"Our show, done quietly, yes?"
"You are, Harry, managing this matter?"
The grin vanished.
"Time will tell I live in hope."
Davies brought him a mug of coffee.
Perry had lifted his plans out of the chest's bottom drawer in the sitting room and carried them into the dining room. He had asked Davies if he minded the intrusion and the detective had shaken his head. It was only a small job, a problem with the air filtration on the production line of an assembly plant in Ipswich. Davies had moved his machine-gun and the spare magazines across the blanket over the table to make room for him, then headed for the kitchen.
It was the first time that Frank Perry had taken out some work in a week. Only a small job, which wouldn't pay more than a thousand pounds, but it was his little gesture of defiance. He had noticed that Davies didn't ask before going to the kitchen to make coffee, and he thought the detective was at home now, comfortable, in their house.
Perry thanked him for bringing the coffee. Meryl was upstairs, packing.
She had slept alone.
Poring over the workshop plans, tracing the course of the filtration pipes, Perry reckoned out where the new motor should be placed, and what power it must have to create the necessary airflow down the pipes to the unit. There were two more consultancy jobs in the drawer, one larger than this and one smaller, and after that there was nothing. He was tapping out calculations and jotting the numbers while she packed.
The ceiling beams and floor planks of the old house creaked under her weight above him. She was in Stephen's room. He didn't know how much she intended to take, everything or the bare minimum. If she took everything, cleared the child's room of clothes and toys, then she was going for ever.
She had called Stephen in from the hut, and he'd come reluctantly his days were now split between the television and the hut. He'd noticed that, just as he had noticed that Davies was now more comfortable in the house. He had not asked how much she intended to take because he had not dared to hear the answer. The footfall moved above him.
She would be in the gloom of their bedroom. She had left the child on his own to pack his toys.
Perry heard the thud as she pulled down the biggest of the cases from the top of the wardrobe, and then another. He stared down, doggedly, at the plans for the new filtration unit.
"Are you all right, sir?"
"Why shouldn't I be?"
"Where's she going?"
"Haven't the faintest idea."
"She has to go somewhere."
"Her mother and father died in a coach crash, and she's never spoken of any relatives. She's no friends where she came from… We only have each other. We thought it was different."
"Shall I book a hotel?"
"That would be best."
"Where should the hotel be?"
"How the hell should I know?"
Davies slipped away, left him. Perry swore. He had made a bloody mistake, had missed a bloody decimal point. He ripped up the sheet of paper on which he'd written his calculations, threw the pieces to the carpet and started again… She'd be packing the blouse he'd bought for her last birthday, and the diamond cluster ring with a central sapphire that he'd given her last Christmas, and the underwear she'd shown him when she came home from Norwich three weeks ago; everything that mattered to her, and to him, would be going into the suitcases. He corrected the positioning of the decimal point. It was the principle that mattered. He would not surrender. Why did no one understand that he had to hold on to the principle?
Davies came back in. Perry saw the smudge of lipstick on his collar, the damp patch around it, and knew the detective had comforted her.
"How much is she taking?"
"Not too much, not too little."
"How long is she going for?"
"Not for me to say, sir."
"Where is she going?"
"An hotel in London I've said I'll book it."
Davies asked him if he'd like a refill of coffee, and Perry nodded. He was wondering, when she was in a hotel in London and the detective was relieved from the duty, when a new man had come to replace him down here, whether Davies would see her, seek her out.
His fingers smacked clumsily against the keys of the calculator.
It had been her idea.
Simon Blackmore held tight to Luisa's hand.
He had had the same idea but it was she who had articulated it.
They walked through the village with purpose.
Either they did it or they left. They both knew that and did not have to speak it. If they had not started out on their walk through the village to the house on the green, both of them would have gone to the garage beside the cottage and brought out the empty packing boxes and started to fill them. They would already have rung for the van and telephoned the estate agent, and they would have gone.
Separately, when they had first seen the cottage, they'd each thought the village was a small corner of heaven, a place of perfection for them. But, as Luisa Blackmore had said, pulling on her coat before the start of their walk, a place in heaven had to be earned.
It was a fine morning. The sunshine played on the tiredness of her face, and on his, and on the brick walls of other cottages where the honeysuckle and the climbing roses were already budding. The light shimmered off the neatness of lawns cut for the first time that year. They went past the pub, not yet open, and the empty car-park, and saw the landlord grunting as he manoeuvred beer kegs from the outbuilding to the main door. The caretaker's bicycle was leaning against the wall of the hall. A young woman sat on the bench and read a book. The shop was open. The builder went by in his van, the man who had told them about their damp problem, and they had seen him the night before, and he waved to them as if nothing had happened in the darkness. They went on to the green, towards the house.
All the time they walked, on the road and on the green, Simon Blackmore held his wife's hand on which there were no fingernails. Her coat cuffs hid her wrists and the old marks of razor slashes. Under her coat, across her breast, was a thick scarf, and under the scarf and her blouse were the burn scars. He supported her. It was necessary to give her support because of the knee injury from long back.
They came to the front gate. They were watched, eyes strip-searching them, by the policemen in the car at the front. They were within the vision of the camera on the wall above the front door. Simon Blackmore squeezed hard on his wife's hand and rang the bell.
They waited. The camera's image would be watched. The policemen in the car would be reporting. He was middle-aged and frail. She limped, and her face showed harmless exhaustion. Nothing about them was threatening.
The lock turned.
The policeman wore a bullet-proof vest over his shirt and his hand hovered near to the pistol in his waist holster. Two bulging suitcases were in the hall behind him. His expression, cutting his eyes and mouth, was of contemptuous hostility.
Holding his wife's hand, looking up at the policeman, Simon Blackmore drew a deep breath. He said, "We heard him speak last night. We were in the crowd but not of it… We haven't met him, we're newcomers, so he won't know us. He said his wife would leave but that she had nowhere to go, and that she would need to find an hotel. We live at the far end of the village, near to the church, at Rose Cottage. It's only our third day here. We have come to offer the lady, and her child, a place in our home, a refuge."
Surprise clouded the policeman's face. He told them to wait there, on the step.
He came back a couple of minutes later, after a hushed conversation inside, and said they'd be visited, and he told them that the Perrys were grateful.
They walked home.
"Do you think she'll come, Simon?"
"I don't know, but, for both our sakes, I hope so.
The bird flew above him. It glided with him as if escorting him.
Vahid Hossein moved, very slowly, through the reed-banks. Sometimes the bird would wheel and fly back past him, and sometimes it would hover over him. The wing-beat seemed stronger each time it flew. In the depths of the marsh he went so carefully to be certain that he did not disturb the nesting birds. When he waded the mud clogged up to his knees and he had to use his strength to drag himself forward through the reed-stems. When he swam, the weight of the rocket launcher and the missiles on his back pushing him down, he did so with great caution. He was never in the open water. He never broke the reed-stems.
He sensed that a man watched for him.
When he rested, exhausted from the mud and the weight of the launcher in the bag on his back, he was relieved to realize that the bruised hip now caused him less difficulty. In the cold of the water there was no pain, and the restriction on his movement was less marked. He was sufficiently fit to go forward, to move against the target.
Only when he was near to the shore-line, when it circled over him, did he talk softly to the bird. He was in dense reeds and he moved them aside singly, and he passed close to geese.
"I wish you well, friend, and I regret that I did not find you at the Jasmin Canal or at the Faw marshes or at the Haur-al-Hawizeh. There were good birds there, but they were not your equal. I would have been grateful there, friend, for the comfort of your company as I am grateful here. I will remember you… Vahid Hossein did not believe it stupid or sentimental or childlike to talk to the bird.
"Will you remember me? I think so. You will not forget the man, the soldier, who cleaned your wound and fed you. I believe that when you come back next year, from wherever you go in the cold winter, you will look for me."
In his exhaustion, Vahid Hossein did not recognize the danger to him of rambling and incoherent thought. He was weakened and hurt, and he did not know it. He dragged himself across the mud of the shore-line, through the last of the reed-stems. He was still and gasped for breath.
"Goodbye, friend, look for me, search, do not forget me."
A sparrow flew away, cheeping, as he scrambled the few yards for the cover of the trees and undergrowth on Fenn Hill to meet Farida Yasmin. They would shout his name, in the streets, when he was home. He did not feel the exhaustion. He had the love of the bird and believed himself supreme.
The great anchor chain rose from the sea. The power of the huge engines edged the tanker away from the mooring buoys. Its cargo gone, the deck of the tanker and the bridge were high above the water.
It would be a long climb… They would have sailed two hours before but for the late arrival back on board of seven of his crew. They had claimed they were lost ashore, and the master had believed they smelt of women's bodies. They always went with whores when allowed ashore, and they were all good Muslims, and they brought back on board foul magazines that would be thrown into the sea when the tanker, days later, reached the Straits of Hormuz and the last leg for home. They would make full speed, twenty-four knots, and be near to the port of Rotterdam in the late evening where they would collect the pilot before sailing into the separation zone. They would reach the waters off Dungeness in the hour before dawn the next morning. It was still possible for his instructions to be changed and for him to pick up the man under the cover of darkness, lift him off the beach.
But it would be a long climb for the man, if his orders were changed, on a bucking rope-ladder, from the sea to the deck and safety.
Farida Yasmin sat on the bench and watched the muted life of the village pass her by. She could see the green and the far end of the house. Today, the police cars cruised more frequently on the one road. She had been through the village twice, gone to the sea twice and up to the church. She hated those times, when she was away from the bench, when she could no longer see the end of the house, but she thought it important to break any pattern she set. She should not spend too long on the bench. A woman with a brightly coloured coat had come and sat with her and had talked about the village. She seemed lonely and bored, soFar ida Yasmin had smiled sweetly and fed the questions that had kept the woman talking. The woman had been with her for an hour. It was a valuable hour. In the police cars, going slowly by, the men would have seen her listening earnestly, and would have thought she belonged. While the woman had talked, looking at her with interest, smiling, laughing with her, Farida Yasmin had been able to see the end of the house over the stupid bitch's shoulder. She glanced, too often, at her watch. Time was passing. She sat on the bench and she thought of the smooth skin of his body, the discolouration of the bruising, and she held her fingers against her lips because the fingers had touched his skin and hair and the bruising… But she had nothing to tell him that would help him.
"Excuse me, miss."
Under his cap, he had a dull, pudgy, middle-aged face. Below his face was the top of the bullet-proof vest against which he held his machine-gun.
"Hello." She made her voice calm, pleasant.
The car was parked behind her, and the driver watched them. It was bright daylight and she had no weapon; he was protected and armed.
"Can I ask what you're doing, miss?"
She grinned. Imperceptibly, she opened her legs, and she straightened her back to emphasize the fall of her chest.
"What you wish you could be doing, officer, letting the rest of the world take the strain."
"You've been here a long time, miss, doing nothing."
"My good luck, to have the time to do nothing."
A small rueful smile slipped his face. He'd have seen the shape of her thighs and the outline of her breasts, as she'd intended.
"So what are you doing here?"
She still grinned, but her mind raced at flywheel speed. It was the moment at which she was tested. It came to her very fast, and she clung to it. She had no time to consider what she said. She must follow her instind. There might be an old photograph of her, but she believed she looked sufficiently different.
"I'm at Nottingham University we're doing a study on rural problems. I chose here. Didn't I do well?"
"You don't seem, if I might say so, to have done much studying."
"Watch me tomorrow, if you're still here, officer. You won't see me for dust."
"What's your name, miss?"
"I'm Carol Rogers. Geography at Nottingham."
"Do you have identification, Miss Rogers?"
"I don't, actually. I left everything like that where I'm staying, in Halesworth does it matter?"
She'd given the name of a popular girl, a right bitch, at the university. The policeman could take her to the car and sit her in the back, and radio through the details and wait for confirmation of her identity. If Carol Rogers was still at the university, going after a masters, and was called from the library, then Farida Yasmin had failed. If she failed, when the light shone into her face and the questions hammered her, she might break as Yusuf had broken. Her hand touched her breast. She thought it was just routine, that he was doing his job and was undecided.
"Don't you have anything driving licence, cash card?"
The voice boomed from the car.
"Come on, Duggie, for Christ's sake…"
He turned away and walked back to the car. When they drove past, he looked at her hard. She bit her lip. She wouldn't tell him that she had been questioned. She thought of her future, when he had gone; anxiety about the future had gnawed increasingly at her through the day. She would be hunted, and looking over her shoulder, always waiting for a policeman to ask her for identificahon. But she could not leave the village, not while she had nothing to tell him that would help him. And then the pride flushed in her because she had come through the first test of her skill.
Davies ended the call and he finished scribbling notes on his pad. They were waiting on him. The principal had his arm around his wife's shoulder.
Davies said, "Two officers in uniform went round to see them. Maybe they hit the door a bit hard, but it took Blackmore five minutes to get her to come out of the kitchen and talk to them. They got it out of her eventually, who she was and what had happened to her. It's not a pretty story. Control ran it through the computer. They're what they say they are… I don't know whether it's the right place for you or the wrong place. We couldn't have you visit there, Frank nor you, Meryl, come back here. You'd be a mile apart, but it might as well be a hundred. It's your decision, both of you. You'd stay there, Meryl, until the conclusion. I think we're close to that, hours from it, but I don't know, and I don't know what's afterwards. I can't tell you how long is "afterwards"…"
Perry said, "Listen, afterwards I'll go in my own time. Of course I'll go. But it's not them, the people here, who decide when."
Davies said quietly, "They check out. He was British Council in Santiago, capital city of Chile. First posting abroad for Simon Blackmore. He would have been running a library at the embassy, bringing out the odd slice of Shakespeare, chucking British culture around, and finding a girlfriend. It was late in 1972. The girlfriend was Luisa Himenez, and she wasn't suitable for a young fellow from the British Council not at all, left-wing political, the ambassador wouldn't have liked that, one little bit. In 1973 there was a military coup that deposed and killed the neo-Communist president, Salvador Allende, then a round-up of sympathizers. She went into the net, she'd have been screened first in that concentration camp they set up in the football stadium, then faced the heavy stuff. The interrogators probably we trained them, we usually did gave her a hard time. A "hard time" is an understatement. Blackmore would have badgered his ambassador for action, and that would have been a waste of his time, and then he went direct to Amnesty International. By his efforts, she was adopted as a prisoner-of-conscience. There are very few who get to that status, and sometimes it can make a small difference. The military were bombarded with letters, it meant hassle for them. For her, it reduced the chance of the old one-liner, "died of medical complications". Without Simon Blackmore's efforts she would have disappeared into an unmarked grave. She was quietly released four years later when the government was whipping up interest in a trade fair. Before she received prisoner-of-conscience status, the interrogators had tortured her no fingernails, did you notice? Did you see her walk away, limping? They broke the ligaments in her right knee, and surgery wasn't on offer. There are slashes at her wrists, attempted suicide when she thought she was going to break. Oh, what we didn't see, she's got burns on her breasts, which they used as an ashtray… The Blackmores have experienced persecution and isolation, which is why they're offering a hand of friendship, and they can't be frightened any more. Their understanding of living and suffering is different from what you've found here. But, Meryl, I can't tell you what to do, go to them or go to a hotel. They might be right for you, they might be wrong. It's your decision."
He came to the hiding-place.
Andy Chalmers hadn't slept in the night, nor in the day.
He could control tiredness, had contempt for it and for hunger, but he had biscuits in his pocket for the dogs. In the night he had listened to the silence, and in the day he had watched the flight of the bird.
To stay awake, and keep alert, he had chosen to concentrate his thoughts on the big birds of his home under the mountain slopes. The bird he watched was half the size of the eagles, pretty and interesting but without majesty… If he had been home, that day, he would have gone to the eyrie on a crag face of Ben More Assynt, scrambled on the scree then climbed and taken cut hazel branches from down beside the loch with him, to repair the eyrie from the storm damage of the winter.
At first, watching the bird in the early daylight, Andy Chalmers was confused. The bird hunted. It dived on a young duck and carried it to the heart of the reed-beds. He understood that. He could see that the bird had no grace in its flight, but was able to hunt. It was recovering from injury, could have been a strike against a pylon's cables or a shotgun wound. After it fed, the bird circled one area at the heart of the reed-beds. It was too immature, without the width thickness in the wing-span, to have a mate nesting below, and at first he had been confused.
He watched that place.
He waited for some reaction from the other birds: for the ducks to rise screaming, or swans and geese to clatter for open water, but he saw only the circling bird, until the afternoon.
Then, a single curlew had flown, startled, from the place he watched. It had taken him minutes to re~Iize that the bird was no longer over that same place and could not have stampeded the curlew. In his mind, he made a central point for the arcs the bird flew, and that point changed, moved gradually away. If he had not been so tired, Andy Chalmers would have understood sooner. The central point for the arcs of flight neared the far shore-line of the marsh, where the trees and scrub merged with the reeds. He did not know why the curlew had crashed out of the reeds, only that its flight had been a moment of luck and had alerted him.
There was a pattern here that he was struggling to understand. At the limit of his vision, he had seen a sparrow break cover from the scrub.
The bird no longer circled, wheeled, but climbed. It was a distant speck when Andy Chalmers moved from his cover and went down into the mass of reeds.
He took the dogs with him, would not be separated from them. It was only when he reached the focus of the harrier's arcs that he realized it was a hiding-place, and as such it was well chosen. Many years before, enough years for it to be before his birth, the marsh waters had rotted a tree's roots. The tree had fallen, the branches had decayed. An empty oil drum had been driven by the winds and tides against the remaining branches and had wedged. It was a refuge, a safe place. Where the trunk peeped above the water was the stripped carcass of a duck, and in the drum was the faint smell of a man. The bird had shown him the place. He could have passed within two yards of the tree's trunk and the almost submerged drum and would not have seen the biding-place.
He had the line. The bird had given him the line to the shore.
Wading through the mud and carrying his dogs, swimming and having them paddle after him, he found not a trace of the man he tracked. He had followed men who had come on to the mountain to raid the eyrie nests, and those men took precautions, faced prison and had cause to be careful. This man was better than any of them. He had the point on the shore-line from which the sparrow had flown. He had the marker.
At the edge of the reeds he lay still in the water, and listened. There was a tangle of bramble a few paces away. He could smell him, but couldn't see him. The dogs were against his body with only their heads above the water. He held his breath and waited. He did not have a profile of the man, could not be inside his mind to know how he would react and how he would move… It was more interesting, there was more unpredictability, in tracking a human than a deer. The tiredness had left him. He lay in the water, was fulfilled, and listened.
The dogs would have told him if the man was close.
The dogs smelt him, as Andy Chalmers did, but knew he was no longer there. He came out of the water and the dogs bounded forward, splashing clear.
He found rabbit's bones and the rear leg of a frog. He knew the man had gone, moved on.
Meryl kissed him. She had her coat on and she held her Stephen's hand. There was another coat over her arm, and four suitcases behind her.
Davies was at the back. Perry couldn't read Davies's face as Meryl kissed him. Rankin was closer: he tousled Stephen's hair and his machine-gun flapped loosely on the webbing when he bent to pick up the child's football.
"You'll be all right?"
"I'll be fine."
"Bill's going to shop for you."
"I'll manage."
The bell rang.
"You won't worry about us."
"I won't."
"I'm just so frightened."
At the third blast of the bell, Rankin peered into the spy hole then nodded to Davies. The key was turned, the bolts drawn back. Davies watched them. Were they ready? Had they finished? It hadn't been there before, but Perry saw compassion in Rankin's face. And he noticed the sharp movements of Davies's jaw as his teeth bit at his lip hard bastards, and they were moved. He had not been upstairs while she had packed. He had not found the quiet corner in the house, away from the microphones. She kissed him one last time her boy wore a new England football shirt that Paget and Rankin had given to him. God alone knew how they'd obtained it, must have had a shop in the town opened up at dawn. Perry felt helpless, as if the eyes, the micrc~hones and the watchers ruled him. He wanted it over, her gone, before he wept.
"You should go, Meryl."
"I'll see you."
"Some time soon."
"Keep safe. Be careful. Don't forget, ever, our love, don't-' "Time you were gone, Meryl."
He could hear the cars outside, the engines starting up.
Davies said, calm voice, "Don't stop, Mrs. Perry. We believe that the area outside is secure, but still don't stop. The pavement time is the worst. Straight out and into the lead car. There's no going back for anything. Keep moving directly to the lead car."
Rankin pulled the door open. Davies hustled them forward, past the two men who waited on the step. They went at a charge. Perry saw his Meryl go, and Stephen with the football, pushed forward by Davies towards the door of the lead car. The two men came behind them with the suitcases and pitched them into the rear car. Rankin snapped the front door shut. He didn't see them go, didn't have the chance to wave. He heard the slam of the doors and the roar of the engines.
"The best thing for now is a fresh pot of tea," he said.
She had taken a position beside the lavatories near the hall. From there she had a view of the gable end of the house and a small part of the green. The light was going. Hours ago, Farida Yasmin had learned the patrol pattern of the unmarked cars, and each time they came by she was behind the toilets and beyond their view. She had hung on there because she had found out nothing that would help him. She stretched her body.
"Hello, my dear, still here, then?"
The woman had come behind her, on the path that led to the beach.
"I was just going."
"I can't remember what you said, why you were here."
The woman would not have remembered because she had not been told.
Farida Yasmin explained pleasantly, "It's a college project on the modern pressures affecting rural life. It seemed an interesting place to come to. I'm getting the feel of it, then I'll be looking to interview people."
"I don't know what you'll learn about us from our toilets."
She had her back to the green and the house. She hadn't seen the cars come. They swept past her. She saw the child and a woman in the back seats of the lead car, and a man who had his head turned away sat in the front. There were cases in the second car, piled high, clearly visible in the rear window. Their headlights speared away into the early dusk.
The woman coughed deep in her throat, drew up the spittle, spat it out through her gaudy lips. She murmured, "They've gone. Damn good riddance."
Farida Yasmin shook. The shock swept through her. She watched the tail-lights disappear around the corner, at speed. Now she had learned something, but it was nothing that would help him. She began to walk briskly from the toilets, past the front of the hall.
The woman called after her, "Come and see me, when you start your interviews."
She had been cheated.
The bird hovered in the last of the afternoon's watery sunshine, then dived.
Beating its wings, it strutted close to him. He saw the wound. There was a tiny scrap of grease proof paper, the sort used to wrap the meat his mother brought home from the butcher in Lochinver, and he found soaked, muddied mince, buried in grass, where the bird had walked and pecked. As if it had been tamed, the bird came close to him. The head keeper had a peregrine falcon in a cage behind the house and near to his caravan: it had no fear of him because it had been fed by him since the day he'd found the abandoned fledgling, wounded by ravens. Andy Chalmers had come out of the marsh, stinking of it. The bird trusted him. Other than the head keeper, he knew of no man who would nurse an injured bird and win its trust. The head keeper was one of the very few men that the taciturn and sullen Andy Chalmers had respect for.
The dogs picked up the scent. They meandered either side of the path and crisscrossed over it. Without water to go into, it was hard even for a skilled man not to leave a scent for dogs.
He let them lead through the wood.
He felt a sense of burgeoning regret.
The dogs burst from the wood and tracked at the side of a grazing field. A car's lights illuminated the top of the hedgerows, receding. He went around the perimeter of the field.
He saw the tyre marks. He could smell the man and the marsh. The tyre marks were at the gate of a field, on the verge of the lane.
He wanted to go home. He had no hatred of a man who had nursed and fed a bird. He wanted to be back with his mountains. He called on the radio for Markham to come and collect him, and gave no explanation.
In the far distance, silhouetted against the darkening sky, was the shape of the church, and the shimmer of the village lights. It was not his place and not his quarrel, he had no business there.