A Line in the Sand (23 page)

he went

pick them up, but it still

wasn't often enough.

"Am I allowed to go and get them?"

"Don't see why not."

Sarcasm, like that was his defence.

"You don't think I'll be shot?"

't think so."

"Shouldn

told him, but didn't, that the Irish were gold medal

He could have

standard at killing off-duty policemen, prison warders and

tes

magistra

on the church steps or in hospital wards, or at the school gate. They 145

had no qualms about blasting a man when he wasn't taking the necessary precautions.

He said he would come with Perry, into the asphalt playground, that they must lock the car because of the H&K, that he must have Perry and

the car in his sight at all times.

They walked through the gate. The loose change clinked in his

suit-jacket pocket. Beneath it the holster was tight against his

upper

thigh. He hung back and watched his principal before turning twice, in

complete circles, to observe the faces of the mothers and fathers, the

grandparents, the kids chasing the football. He saw the way that

men

and women came to his principal, slapped his back, shook his hand

and

laughed with him. The other boy, the one they were getting home,

stood

by the principal. They came round Perry like they were flies to jam and he heard the roar of the laughter.

A kid, would have been the same age as his Brian, kicked the football air.

high in the

The swarm followed the spiralling ball.

He'd ring that night, find out how Donald's game had gone, when he'd done the shift with Juliet Seven.

The ball landed and bounced. The bounce would take the ball over

the

playground fence, out into the road and the traffic.

He jumped. It was his instinct to keep a bobbing, chased ball out of

fic.

the traf

He was grinning at his own athleticism, his back arched

with the leap, his fingertips pushing the ball back towards the pack of

kids. There was the lightness, emptiness, at his waist.

The gun, the 9mm Glock pistol, fell from the waist holster. As he natched for it.

landed he s

It was beyond his grasp. It fell away

from

146

him. The gun clattered on the asphalt playground, cartwheeled, and came to rest away from the grope of his hands. The kids' shouts and yells died and the black shape of the Glock lay on the asphalt beside the white-painted lines of a net ball court.

The parents' laughter and talk withered. He walked forward, half

a

dozen paces. He saw the rolling, abandoned football and the young, old, numbed faces. He picked up the gun, and the screaming started.

He

saw the parents grabbing kids, going down on to the asphalt and

sheltering them with their bodies, hugging them, guarding them. He held the gun in his hand, the tool of his job, and did not know what he

should say. Perry stared at him, blank and uncomprehending. A

great

space was widening around him. Through a glass window, he saw the grey, lined face of the head4eacher as she lifted the telephone. He put the gun into his waist holster.

The first cars were already charging away from the school gate. He took a deep breath, then strode towards the school building and the sign for the head-teacher's room.

It took fifteen minutes to sort it. He showed his warrant card, made a

call to turn back armed-response vehicles and another to

telephone

verify his identity for the head-teacher. His explanation to her

of

his principal's need for police protection was economical and bland.

He walked back across the empty playground.

They were all gone, his principal's friends and their children.

He slipped down into the front passenger seat.

y, "I owe you an apology, Mr. Perry. That was

Davies said stiffl

unforgivable, unprofessional. You are perfectly entitled to ring

my

o request a personnel change."

guvnor t

"But I'm a beggar, Bill, so I can't be a chooser. What I'd get might be worse than you." The principal laughed, with a hollowed echo.

"Thank you. If you don't mind, it's Mr. Davies.. . I don't know 147

what

the consequences will be."

"None.." forgotten.. . just a little dose of excitement. I have to

tell you, I saw the gun. The gun was real, but it's the only part of

anything that seems believable."

"It's all real, Mr. Perry, and you shouldn't forget that."

le telephone went in his inside pocket.

The mobi

Could Bill Davies

talk? No. When could he talk? In fifteen minutes. Would he call nest, when he could talk?

back soo

In the guttering light they drove

back to the village.

It was the second time he had asked the distance to the village she said it was six and a half kilometres by road. He told her to stop, then told her when he would see her again at this precise place. He took her map, large-scale at four centimetres to a kilo metre and

the

sausage bag. There were trees close to the road and he went for them.

look back and he did

He did not

not wave. Farida Yasmin Jones

wondered

ust and watched him until

what she would have to do to earn his tr

the

trees hid him.

Chapter Seven.

"Well, are you...?"

imple."

"God, it's not that s

"It's black and white... Are you going?"

"I'm trying to be sensible."

"Are you staying?"

"I said I wasn't going, I said I was staying."

"What, then, is the problem?"

The boy was upstairs. Davies had gone and Blake was in the car

outside. They had come home. Perry had told Meryl that the

148

policeman

had dropped his gun in the playground. They had been responsible

for a

moment of blue panic. That was one problem. Davies had come to the front door fifteen minutes later with another problem.

"I want to stay."

"So stay."

"I don't want to go."

"So don't go."

"But I'm not told anything."

"Neither am I."

Davies had stood on the step. She would have seen the technique he used. He stood on the step, his body blocking the open doorway and he

had motioned Perry to stand back in the hallway. He had reached

forward to the switch and turned off the hall light. Perry had been in

the shadow, she behind him, their bodies protected by the

policeman's.

Davies had told them, calm and businesslike, that again he was

offering

his apologies for what had happened in the playground and repeated that

Mr. Perry was perfectly entitled to request a change in personnel, and

Perry had shaken his head.

Then the second problem was explained. Like a doctor at a bedside with

a bad diagnosis to deliver, clearly and concisely, Davies had said that

there was an upgrade in the threat-assessment level. The property was

to be protected by armed uniformed officers, that premises for them would be delivered in the morning, that there would be additional

personnel, mobile, assigned to the village. Davies hadn't said it, it

n his face, but they were

was i

going up the tough road; the easy road

was to pack the suitcases. They had paced around the kitchen and

149

at the problem. They had broken off the talk to eat with

worried

the

re sending him upstairs, and starting at it again.

boy befo

"What do they know?"

en't told me."

"They hav

"Why haven't they told you?"

"They don't explain. They never explain."

"What does it mean?"

His voice rose.

"If you want to go, go."

want to go.

"I don't

e, then, leave it?"

"Can w

ightened. I'm frightened because we can't even talk

"I'm just fr

about

it. Is this our best effort at conversation?"

"Everything I know I've told you. Let's drop it."

"What sort of life " "Better than running out of suitcases. It's home.

It's our place. It's among our friends. So leave it or go."

e

He turned on the television. It was a quiz game and the audienc

bayed

ement at the contestants going after giveaway money.

encourag

ly, Perry wondered how many of them could have answered real

Bitter

questions. Where was Iran? What was the government of Iran? What was

WMD? What was the requirement of mixing machines in the programme for

the development of chemical-agent warheads, and the requirement in the

programme for the development of ballistic missiles? What did they do

with a fucking spy in Iran?

150

The telephone rang. The sound was suppressed by the shrieking of

the

studio audience. She heard it and jolted, but he didn't stir from his

He watched the ecstatic faces of the audience. The

chair.

telephone

ng time before she weakened and went to answer it.

rang a lo

She went into the kitchen, and it was silent.

He could not hear her voice.

He hated the game show, the moronic questions, the cacophony of

e.

applaus

e curtains were drawn, as the policeman had said they should be.

Th

He'd

the darkened room and groped in the blackness towards the

come into

and drawn the curtains, then groped back towards the standard

window

lamp and switched it on. Before, they would not have drawn the

curtains. Only their home tonight would have the curtains drawn.

The

drawn curtains separated them from the village, their neighbours and Meryl

friends.

had said that in the morning she would buy the lengths

of net from which to make more curtains, and the boy had been told he

was not to stand behind windows when the curtains weren't drawn, where be seen.

he could

back into the room.

She came

She was biting her lower lip. She was

pale.

bloody noise off?"

She shouted, "Can't you turn that puerile

He hit

e mute button on the remote.

th

it?"

"Who was

ur friends."

"One of yo

"Who?"

a Carstairs."

"Emm

did she want?"

"What

151

She spoke deliberately, but without emotion and without feeling.

"Emma has dropped out of the school-run with us. We won't be taking Sam, she won't be taking Stephen. Emma won't be coming to our house again, and Sam won't. It's dangerous to come to our house, your

friend

said, and she's not prepared to put Sam at risk."

"That's ridiculous." He pushed himself up from the chair.

"It's what she said."

He blustered, "I'll speak to her, and Barry."

She blocked his way.

"She said she wouldn't speak to you. She said her decision was final.

She said that if you rang her back she would put the phone down on you.

"The bloody cow."

"She said..."

"What did she say.

"She said that it was selfish of us to expose others to danger, then ff."

she rang o

"She's the only one, we're popular here, you see.

He heard, beyond the drawn curtain, a car's engine crawl by and

wondered if it were the armed police. He felt the same chilly sweat as

when he had come off the feeder flight and joined the emigration queue at Tehran for the international leg, as he had shuffled forward a

small

step at a time, dying to urinate, trying to appear unconcerned. He'd hen, as he did now, if the fear showed. The last times

wondered t

the

sweat had soaked his shirt under his jacket as he had presented his passport at the desk. Behind the emigration official were always

the

penetrating eyes of the pasdar men, in their washed-thin uniforms, who

forward

leaned

and stared in suspicion at the offered passport. When

152

it was handed back, there was never a smile, no farewell joke, and he

had walked away towards the departure lounge, his legs weak, fearing ey played with him and would let him go a few paces before

that th

the

come back. Each time as he'd slumped into the

shout for him to

aircraft seat, before the engines gained power, before the steps were ay, wondering whether they would allow him to settle before

taken aw

coming on board to heave him off, he'd felt the cold sweat, because he

knew the fate of a spy in Iran.

Meryl had gone to the kitchen, and he heard her start to wash up the

.

saucepans

"

"Who's the P0?

rgeant, Davies."

"An SB se

eless. Who's on the other shift?"

"He's us

ake."

"A DC, Bl

useless. Who's in charge?"

"Next to

"Box 500."

"Totally fucking useless bloody lights, get on through."

Paget was driving the escort car, with Rankin beside him, through

heavy

traffic into the road junction as the lights changed to red. The

van they followed had gone on, shouldn't have. The dozy

prison

beggar