A Line in the Sand (37 page)

wind

and the drive of the rain, was one of the policemen from the unmarked car. He cradled his gun close to his body, as if to protect himself against the onslaught of the gathering storm, now and in the future.

What Davies, drenched wet and frozen, had been told was that the

killer

would come soon, but he didn't say it.

leven.

Geoff Markham didn't like to drink in the middle of the day and had sipped a fruit juice. The American had washed down the pork pie with 244

a

dark pint from a wooden barrel and there had been salad with the pie.

In the car, the onion was still on Littelbaum's breath.

Markham hesitated before turning at the signpost to the village. A cattle-carrier lorry swerved past him and gave him a long blast on the

horn. It was all as he remembered it. Ahead of him was the high

water

tower, the dominating feature, and the American gazed at it with a sort

of awe but didn't speak. Beside him, flanking the road, was a small car-park and a sign "Toby's Walks: Picnic Area'. Away to the right was

re wide, flat fields covered with half-moon

Northmarsh, to the left we

g shelters.

pi

He swung the car on to the minor road. Of course it

was

the same. How could it be any different?

The American smiled apologetically and murmured that he needed, and badly, to relieve himself.

t was

Markham drove into the car-park of the picnic area and saw wha

ere

different. Th

were two men in an unmarked car, uniformed, wearing

vlar vests and silly little baseball caps.

ke

But, there was nothing

silly about the barrel of the Heckler & Koch aimed at him through the

open side window. He braked.

id that he couldn't have lasted much longer, and dived

Littelbaum sa

for

en to see

the bushes. Markham held up his ID card for the policem

d

an

sauntered towards them.

He introduced himself and said the American had bladder problems.

He

asked them how it was. The aim of the gun was no longer on his chest.

ld that they had the registration and the make of a car to

He was to

look for, and it was all right in daylight.

mean?"

"What's that

an grimaced.

The policem

a sod of a place after dark. So quiet. Last night, before

"It's

245

the

changeover but after it got dark, we saw this shape in the bushes.

Bloody near crapped myself. Seemed to be watching us. I got the

gun

on it, then two dogs came out. It was a woman walking her dogs, in the

dark, like a bloody ghost, proper turn it gave me. It's Toby's Walks here. She asked, all straight-faced, had we seen Toby? She was

serious had we seen Toby? We asked the old biddy, who was Toby? You know what? He was Black Toby, Tobias Gill no lie, it's what she said and he was a black drummer in the dragoons who got pissed up, went looking for a bit of fanny and brought her up here. He was found, Black Toby was, the next morning, drunk and incapable, and she was beside him, raped and strangled. They took him to the assizes and then

carted him back here to hang him in chains. It was two hundred and fifty years ago, and the old biddy said he liked to walk round here, rattling his bloody chains. It's that sort of place. After what

she'd

told us, we heard every bloody bush move last night, every bloody

creak

of every bloody tree... She meant it. She was really surprised we hadn't seen him."

The American came out of the bushes and was pulling up his zip. Markham didn't laugh at the story. Out there a shadowy figure was moving

in

darkness among cover, silent, without the rattling of chains, towards a

target and a place of death. He felt the cold wind coming off the sea

and shuddered.

They climbed back into the car and he drove on.

Of course it was different, and for some it would never again be the same.

Markham asked the American what he wanted to see and Littelbaum's

jutted towards the church tower.

finger

The rain had come on heavily

while they'd stopped for lunch, but now had eased into a fine,

drizzle. He could see the first houses of the village

persistent

and

the church tower looming above them. He was unsettled. It wasn't only

the policeman's story of the ghost of the black drummer, it was also 246

what Littelbaum had told him of Alamut, a place of death, and a bus ride out of Bandar Abbas, a place of carnage. And he remembered what Cathy Parker had said and asked. It would be decided down here, at the

village, body to body, as it always was, at close quarters, and was he

tough enough?

He felt inadequate. It was no longer about people like himself,

rated

as intelligent, educated and thoughtful. It was about guns and

nerve:

this was a power play. Littelbaum pinched his arm and pointed to

the

parking lay-by at the side of the church.

At the near end was a fine squat tower, perhaps seventy-five feet

in

height, with wide walls of flint facing. Behind it were the nave

and

the high chancel windows and between them were stout yellowed stone buttresses. Beyond the church was a ruin, once finer and larger than its neighbour but now roofless and with the rain coming through the clerestory windows. Markham asked the American what he wanted to

do,

and was told he wished to go inside. He had a fascination for

churches

and a total respect for the quality of the architects and craftsmen who

had built them, but the ruin disturbed him death so close to life.

He

pushed open the church door. There were a few lights in the dull

dim

interior, as there had been in the weekend corridors at Thames House that morning.

faced, older man.

A clergyman came towards him, a gaunt, fleshless-

Markham thought Littelbaum was following him. He offered his hand in

friendship and lied, said that he often diverted on a journey to see a

hile church.

worthw

He heard the aged squeak of the hinges of a small

door to the side.

ame

A smile lit the clergyman's face, as if few c

to

see his church. The flowers were already in place for Sunday's

he only brightness stretching towards the altar and the

service, t

247

ained glass of the arched window behind it.

st

On the walls were the

carved plaques remembering the dead.

The clergyman said, "There was an older church, of course, but that's ed by the sea first time round then washed away. The

gone, flood

origin

the building here is fifteenth century, and a magnificent building of

it would have been.

e died.

But the villag

There were four altars

re, now there's just the one. Once we had a bell that weighed

he

three-quarters of a ton, but the community sold it off,

ecause they were dying from deprivation and hunger.

in 1585, b

It's

so

good to meet someone who's interested my name's Hackett."

Markham looked around him, past the old carved-stone font, and could Littelbaum.

not see

If he had been alone in the church he would have

te prayer for those who'd been in the bus.

said a short priva

The clergyman droned on, "Disease, poverty, fires, all decimated the of

population

the village I sometimes say that this is a place without

a present, only a past. That's how it feels here sometimes."

He was in the bath. Meryl had made them undress at the back door, had

insisted on it. Davies thought by now that Perry would have told

her

of the disaster in the pub, would have come up with an explanation as

to why they had come back sodden, with sand caking their shoes.

She came into the bathroom.

itched his wristwatch to the cold tap, and was allowing

Davies had h

himself five minutes' defrost time. The holster and the Glock were the floor, with the radio.

within reach on

She had brought two of

to the back door.

Perry's dressing-gowns

There was no knock, and no hesitation or apology. He sat upright

and

nched forward to obscure his waist, hips and groin from her.

hu

Meryl

carried a heap of folded clothes. Her face was expressionless, like f the nurses had been while he couldn't wash himself, sponging

those o

his privates after he'd broken his ankle falling from a ladder when et through a back window to plant a bug.

trying to g

There was a towel

on top of the clothes. They could have been left outside the door, 248

and

she could have shouted to him that they were there.

She

id

la

the towel and the clothes on the chair beside his head. Davies

stared straight ahead, and wondered how close she was to the edge

of

her sanity. It wasn't his job to prop up the morale of his principal, at of his principal's wife.

let alone th

He felt himself to be the

s

crutch on which she leaned. It was nothing to do with hi

personality,

h or his wit.

his warmt

It was because he had a Glock 9mm pistol in

a

ying on the bright pink fluffy mat beside the bath. She

holster l

came

he bathroom, where he was naked, for comfort from him and from

into t

his gun.

The wristwatch showed that his time was up. He had not the heart

to

tell her that he could not be her friend. He reached for the towel, f clumsily, stood up in the bath and began to dry himself.

hid himsel

ed her for bringing him the clothes. She went out of the

He thank

bathroom and closed the door after her. She had not said a single word.

e Littelbaum paused, took his handkerchief and mopped the sweat

Duan

off

head.

his fore

He swayed, clung to the rail, and climbed again. He

had

r of heights, but beyond the horror was a cruel sense of

a horro

obligation. He had to climb the tower. He went up the narrow, worn, steps; if he had slipped he would have plunged.

spiralled

The door

at

bolted and the bolt rusted. He couldn't move it. He

the top was

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 istcoat. The drizzle made his eyes smart.

from his wa

around him and clung, with both hands, to the low,

He looked

crenellated wall.

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

249

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 eps with

wedged the door shut after him, and came down the spiral st

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

250

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.