A Line in the Sand (47 page)

from

hy can't I be told what I did? Why won't any bastard tell me?"

"W

hadn't spoken a word through the meal. Twice, after wiping

Meryl

her

ps with the napkin, she had dabbed her eyes. The detective's

li

contribution had been to ask for various condiments to be passed him.

iters had brought the coffee and retreated to the kitchen.

The wa

erry belted his hand on the table.

Frank P

ight, no one tells me, then we're off. We get the hell out and

"R

that's that, end of story."

trying to push back his chair but he was wedged

The principal was

in

the corner. Then he tried to shove the table forward, driving it

into

Markham's stomach. Bill Davies was snapping his fingers at the

emen by the main door and the kitchen swing doors, and they were

polic

adjusting the straps that held their machine-guns and mouthing into rophones... Geoff Markham thought how it would be on the

their mic

telephone that night to Harry Fenton. He'd failed, the principal

was

running. The failure would be the marque to end his career at Thames House. However many years he lived, decades, he would be dogged by that failure... He took out his wallet and extracted a credit card.

The

310

owner came hurrying God, he'd be glad to see the back of them and

took

it. He straightened his tie, then rammed the table away from him, trapped the man.

"You want to know?"

"I've the bloody right to know!"

The bill was waved under his nose. It must have been prepared and ready. Without checking it, he scrawled his signature on the docket and took back the card. He waved the owner away, gestured for him to

retreat and give them space.

"What did I do?"

There was at Thames House, and it would be the same at the bank, a culture against honesty. No advancement ever came from telling it as

it was. He was hemmed in at work, and it would be the same in the future, by men and women who weighed their words for fear of giving offence. It had been the same at home, and the same at university.

He

had drunk nothing but carbonated water, he was utterly sober. For the

first time in his life, Geoff Markham thought the moment had come

for

nesty, the whole truth.

sheer ho

ietly, "You were a second-rate salesman. You were a

He spoke qu

grubby

creature on the make.

little

You were into illegality, fraudulently

writing out false export declarations for Customs and Excise. You were

greedy, so avaricious for the commissions you were getting that the of the money became more important to you than that your wife

chasing

was screwing on the side and your marriage was gone-' Perry swung

a

wayward fist at him and missed the target, Markham's chin, but hit the

bottle's neck and toppled it.

"You were on a fast ride and going nowhere, but the greed held you and

you wouldn't back off. To hell with the wife opening her legs, the 311

money kept rolling in, and then, one day, comes the morning after, the

dawn hangover, and there's a call from a lady and most persuasively she's asking for a meeting. You thought you were in control until you

sat down with Penny Flowers. Do you remember her, Frank? I hope

you

do, because where you are now is down to her. You dangled from her inger..."

little f

the background romantic piano music played serenely. The wine

In

stained a path across the tablecloth from the toppled bottle.

"She was asking you for a little bit of help and if you didn't care to

do so, she was offering you a big bit of a prison sentence, like seven and, of course, you chose to help.

years

When you walked away from

that first meeting with Penny Flowers you'd have thought you could le it, without breaking sweat, and you were wrong.

hand

She's a tough

bitch, but you know that now.

't get clear of Penny Flowers's

You don

aws.

cl

It starts easily enough, always does. It's the classic way,

Mr. Perry, of agent handling. Did she tell you that she liked you, u were really important?

that yo

She would have regarded you as cheap

dross, because that's the way all controllers regard all agents."

The wine stain reached the edge of the table and the first drip fell s lap.

into Meryl'

"At

,

first

it would have been sketch-maps of the plant, then character

profiles of the prime personalities. After that, it's documents,

later

it's photographs with a supplied camera. Cheap dross you may be,

but

not an idiot. You understand now that you're into espionage, and

you

know the penalty in Iran for espionage. The sweat's started. The sweat becomes colder each time you fly there, and you're looking over your shoulder because it only takes one mistake to alert the security there.

ch night in your hotel room, you'd have wondered whether

Ea

you'd made that mistake. But you couldn't shake clear of Penny

s, and there was always one more trip back, always one more

Flower

question she wanted answered..."

Frank Perry stared into Geoff Markham's face, and in his eyes was

the

fear, as if he lived it again.

312

ou told Penny Flowers, just happened to mention it, that they'd

"Y

changed the schedule for your next meeting, brought it forward a week not have looked that interested, it's a handler's skill never

she'd

to

ested in what an agent says but she'd have probed deeper,

seem inter

onversation.

done it in easy c

If you'd understood the way a handler

rks, the few extra questions, and always the studied indifference, wo

then the alarm bells would have rung. Just before you flew to Iran time you would have known it was the danger time. A

that last

debriefing the night before you travelled, not just Penny Flowers

but

hard-faced bastards telling you what was wanted. It was about a

party,

yes, a celebration dinner for heads of section?"

Frank Perry, grim, sobering, nodded.

ould have gone back the last time, to all those people who

"You w

lcomed you.

we

I doubt you slept on any of those nights because you'd

have been going over every question you'd asked where was the party, who was

,

going

when was the bus leaving? and wondering if the mistake

had been made. They were the heads of section for the

fare

chemical-war

programme, and the designers of the warhead. They were the big

people

in the big picture, and you were just a bloody ant by comparison.

Your

only importance was that you had access... They'd have hanged you, not

so that your neck broke but so that you strangled and kicked the air..

ouldn't have done it myself, Mr. Perry, I wouldn't have had

. I c

the

courage. I would have crumpled with the fear. I sincerely admire what

you did. I don't mean to embarrass you, but I haven't ever met anyone of such raw bravery... Do you still want to know?"

Frank Perry mouthed his answer ~ softly that Markham couldn't hear it.

"The Jews do the dirty work for us. They understand about survival better than we do. They won't, again, go naked into the sheds and have

e crystals drop on them. They are, in modern jargon,

cyanid

proactive.

313

lis wouldn't have needed much persuasion because those

The Israe

warheads could fall on them. A squad was put on shore after being cross the Gulf.

ferried a

They landed up the coast from Bandar Abbas.

They intercepted the bus on its way to the restaurant. A piece of charity fell off Penny Flowers's desk, probably the only time it has.

pened to the bus was an accident, you understand me. It

What hap

created confusion and bought you time to build a new life before the realized the enormity of the crime and at whose door it

Iranians

lay..."

The music played on. Markham felt so sorry for the man.

"The bus was stopped, then burned. It was made to look, before a d examination produced the truth, like an accident. There

detaile

were

survivors.

no

The director, the engineers, the scientists, all died

in

e fire."

th

ank Perry jerked the weight of his body up, his lips gibbering,

Fr

but

could not speak.

he

anted to know. It is why the Iranians will hunt you, track

"You w

you,

kill you, and all those with you.

try to

There'll be files on you

that

ked high enough to eat lunch off. They will never forget

are stac

you.

you did was buy time.

What

I'd like to say that the time was well

used, that the programme was seriously delayed. I can't - I don't know.

now whether the time you bought with your courage,

I don't k

Frank, was well used or was frittered.." but I recognize your bravery

because it humbles me."

Meryl was crying quietly. Markham pulled back the table and let

Perry

stagger to his feet. The rain had started outside and the street

glistened. He took Perry's arm gently and steadied him through the door and across the pavement. Davies held Meryl close to him. Her

, from the spilled wine, was stained red like a wound.

dress

Markham

it was what Perry was owed, and he was glad he'd done it.

thought

* * *

314

slowly.

He climbed the stairs

It had been a distressing evening for Simon Blackmore. Two months urveyor had checked Rose Cottage, and described the damp

earlier, a s

as

who

minimal. Late that evening, without an appointment, a man

scribed himself as a builder and decorator had prised his way into de

the cottage. He called himself Vince, and explained that he always on new people moving into the village.

dropped by

He'd walked around

and pointed out at least half a dozen places where the wallpaper

peeled

and the plaster work was stained, tut ting and frowning at the cost and

his schedule. But the work needed doing, must be done. He'd spoken of

Mrs. Wilson's rheumatism and laid the blame for it on the damp.

He'd

settled immovably at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee. They were

both so tired, exhausted from the unpacking of boxes, but they had with courtesy as he'd talked of the village, his lifetime

listened

home, and his central place in it. And he'd told them, as if it were a

kindness to them, that they should keep away from the green at the far

end of the village because there were armed police there, guarding a

family that no one in their right mind wanted to know... "But they've got the message, there's no one'll speak to them, they'll be bloody of here." It had been an age before he'd finished his

frozen out

coffee, insisted that he would send in an estimate for necessary work, and left.

Simon went up the stairs and into their bedroom, where Luisa was

undressing. They hadn't yet unpacked the shades for the ceiling

bulbs.

h, harsh light fell on his wife and highlighted the old burn

The garis

marks on her breasts and stomach before the nightdress covered them.

The train hammered on the track, jerking and rolling.

rs lay on his side on the bunk bed, on the clean white

Andy Chalme

dressed. His dogs, alert,

sheets and the blankets. He had not un

were

curled against his body and gave him warmth. Behind him, distanced, were the birds and their eyries on the crag cliffs, and the bog heather 315

uplands where the deer grazed, and the mount am lochans that held

the

small brown trout, and the glens that were home to the plovers and and curlews. Ahead lay an unfamiliar terrain.

wheat ears

almers came south, to track a man.

Andy Ch

rteen.

He was into Thames House early, had limped from a photo-development kiosk to the building, shown his temporary accreditation at reception ed into the third-floor work area.

and hobbl

His feet were blistered

from a long day's walking; the deep bath and the salts in it hadn't the pain.

lessened

ttelbaum had walked, the previous day, right round the Tower

Duane Li

of

London the Jewel Tower, the White Tower, Traitor's Arch, the

square where the state's enemies had been beheaded,

grass-centred

and

e places of death and imprisonment. Once he'd giggled,

all th

attracted

, because he'd wondered why his Saudi friends hadn't bought

attention

the whole damned place lock, stone and axe and transferred it to

Riyadh. He had gone round on a tour, led by a costumed guide, then gone round again, on his own, and taken a whole roll of film. From the

Tower of London he had walked to St. aul's Cathedral, then hiked P