A Line in the Sand (61 page)

curtains, then the shadow.

He had the sights set to forty-five metres.

The car came past, dawdling, its lights brightening the hedge in front of him. He was not concerned with other cars, only with the cars

that

carried the guns and cruised slowly.

k to the

The darkness came bac

405

road and he made his last checks.

Paget said, "What I always say, you get what you pay for."

Rankin said, "Fair enough what you pay for but if you want the proper gear then, by God, you've got to pay."

They were on their way back to their lodgings in the town after the end

of their twelve-hour shift. Behind them, in the barricaded and

guarded

house, the principal was someone else's headache. For twelve hours, they were free of it.

"When we're out in the bloody boat, this weekend, I want to be warm.

"Then it's gonna cost you."

"Daylight robbery as bloody usual."

"As you said, Joe, you get what you pay- The flash of bright light exploded from behind the hedge on the far side of the road. It

illuminated the dead hedge leaves, an old holly tree and the trunk of

an oak. Across the road, brilliant in colour, came a line of shining gold thread, going arrow-straight in front of the car's windscreen.

The flash came, and the thread unravelled in a split moment of

silence.

The thread-line crossed the road, cleared the opposite low wall, and a

small garden and went straight into a downstairs window. It was

almost

in petrifyingly slow motion.

The blast from the flash fire behind the hedge hammered into the car as

Joe Paget braked, and with it was the whistle shriek of the gold

thread's passing.

The thunder of the detonation pierced Dave Rankin's ears, and he

froze.

There was a blackness in his mind and he could feel the air stripped lungs.

from his

This was not Lippitts Hill, nor Hogan's Alley, nor

any

e they'd ever been on, not any exercise.

bloody rang

The wheels had

406

cked

lo

when Paget had braked and his sight was gone. They were slewed

across the road and Dave Rankin's ears were dead from the blast

sound.

ed, "It's where she is-' Rankin bawled, "Get there, get

Paget gasp

there

to it where she is-' Paget had stalled the motor. Rankin was swearing w, electric, the pace at which it came down.

at his windo

The engine

was coughing back to life. Rankin had the Glock off his belt. Paget had the car swerving back on to the centre of the road.

"Fucking get there, Joe!"

he car back into gear and Rankin's head jerked forward

Paget put t

and

apped the dash.

sl

Paget accelerated. They were coming towards the

house.

e front window of the

There was just smoke, billowing from th

use, from the black hole where the window had been and curtain

ho

shreds, and silence. The reflex for Rankin was to get out of the

car,

help make the area secure, radio in. He had the door half open when he

was thrown back in his seat as Paget hit the pedal.

"Look, for fuck's sake, Dave, look!"

Paget's free hand, off the wheel, reached out and caught Rankin's

coat

front, loosed it and pointed.

It was a moment before Rankin comprehended, then he saw him.

There was a high wall of old weathered brick that kept him on the

road.

an awkward, fast

The headlights caught him. He was running with

ride

st

towards the end of the high wall and the graveyard beyond. The

lights trapped him.

head

He was in army fatigues but the mud on them

blocked out the patterns of the camouflage. As he ran he twisted

his

he lights would have been in his eyes,

head to look behind him. T

inding him, and he ran on. The car closed on him.

bl

head and his shoulders, his arm, out of the passenger

Rankin had his

side window, the wrong side window. He tried to aim, but couldn't hold

407

steady. The Glock was a close-quarters weapon. Practice on the

range,

with the Glock, was at never more than twenty-five metres. The

Heckler

& Koch that he'd carried all day, that he would have given his right ball for, would have done the job perfectly but was back in the Wendy hut with the relief.

"Brake, Joe, and give me some goddamn light."

The braking bloody near cut him in two. His back thudded against

the

door-frame.

Rankin went out through the window, fastest way, and tumbled on the tarmac. The breath was squeezed out of his body. He dragged himself up, winded and so bloody confused.

Paget spun the wheel.

The headlights hit the man as he straddled the graveyard's boundary wall.

Rankin was down low, kneeling, and saw him. The lights threw huge shadows off the stones. He was at fifteen paces and going fast, but the headlights held him. They didn't practise it at the range, but he

knew what to do. Rankin's fists were locked together on the butt

on

the Glock, and he punched his arms out and made the isosceles. He tried to control his breathing, to hold the aim steady. His finger was

on the trigger. Thirty metres, going on thirty-five. He took the big

deep breath to steady himself. Forty metres, going towards the

shadows

thrown off the stones. He aimed at the back of the running man, into the middle of the spine, and squeezed hard on the trigger. The

running

man was between a cross and the shadowy form of an angel stone. He

. The crack belted his ears. He saw the back of the

fired again

running man as it dropped. Double tap... Rankin shouted, "I got him I

fucking got him, Joe."

The engine was left running.

408

"Bloody good, Dave."

"Had him, I dropped him."

Paget went over the wall and right, towards the church porch. Rankin im, heard the shout, scrambled over and circled to the left.

covered h

It was what they had endlessly practised, both of them, at Lippitts il it was routine and boring: two guns, never presenting

Hill, unt

a

d closing for a kill.

target, an

One going forward the other

covering,

ing forward and one covering. They closed on the gap

the other go

space

ss and the angel.

between the cro

There was a dark place, a little

beyond where the shadows of the two stones merged, and beyond it there lear lit ground.

was c

They stalked the space, sprinting between the

stones, freezing and aiming, calling the moves to each other.

y, Dave?"

"You read

oe."

"Ready, J

Rankin's aim was into the shadows. He was behind the cross.

ached up with his torch from behind the cover of the angel.

Paget re

The torch beam wavered through the shadow, and fell on the grass.

no body on the grass, no corpse and no wounded man.

There was

The beam moved over the grass and there was no weapon discarded there, no blood.

"I thought I saw him go down..."

"You thought wrong, Dave."

"After fifteen bloody years... "Sixteen years, actually, Dave you waited sixteen years and then you fucked up."

kin knelt on the grass where there was no body, no blood,

Dave Ran

no

and he shook. As a pair they were laid-back, private,

weapon,

superior

rds.

basta

They always did well on the range and never had to be sent

409

for a coffee and a smoke to calm themselves before trying again to get

the necessary score to pass the reappraisal. They were the best,

they

were the ones the instructors pointed out to the recruit marksmen.

Sixteen years of practice and sixteen years of training no body, no blood, no weapon. He knelt on the damp grass and the energy seemed to

drain out of him.

ad until Paget pulled him roughly

He hung his he

to

his feet.

"In this life, Dave, you get what you pay for. They didn't pay much."

"I would have sworn I'd hit him."

"There's no blood, Dave.. . They got us."

The noise of the explosion had careered around the village.

It pierced the doors and windows of the houses, the cottages,

ws

bungalo

and villas, where the televisions blared the argument of the

evening's

dramas. It split into kitchens and dissolved desultory meal

tions. It hammered into the talk in the bar and silenced

conversa

them

It startled a man with a dog on the road, a woman who was

there.

in

the back of her garden filling a coal bucket, a man who worked at

a

lathe on the bench in his garage, and a couple making love in the

flat

op. The blast sounded in the houses, gardens and lanes

above a sh

of

the village... and in the barricaded house.

It murmured its way into the safe area between the mattresses, past the

filled sandbags, and Blake swore softly. Davies dropped his hand

on to

Frank Perry's shoulder, and there was silence. Then the radio

started

screaming for them... Nobody in the village moved quickly to leave the

410

protection of their homes. There had been the noise, then the

silence,

then the howling of the sirens. Only after the sirens had come and the

escended again, did the villagers gather their coats, wrap

quiet had d

themselves in warmth and come out of their homes to go to look and to

gawp.

had come on heavily.

The rain

f the village. Their

Eventually, they came from their corners o

uffled steps muted, huddled under umbrellas, the first of them

sh

led away.

reached the house, lit by arc-lamps, as the ambulance pul

They gathered to watch.

He came back.

She had heard the explosion and had rejoiced. He could not have done it without her. Now she would persuade him.

ssein came as a shadow out of the darkness, to the car, to

Vahid Ho

r.

he

She tried to take him in her arms to hold him and kiss him, but he inched away. He gripped the launcher to his chest and rocked.

fl

Then

t the wheel arch of the car.

he slid down, agains

There should have

en triumph, but his eyes were far away.

be

matter?

"What's the

You got him, didn't you? What happened there?"

eplied to her.

~He never r

a Yasmin stormed away from him.

Farid

ndered across the common ground towards the lights of the

She blu

village. The rain sheeted down on to her.

She backed off the road as a police car came past her with its siren splashing the puddled rainwater on to her thighs and waist.

wailing,

She had heard the clamour of the explosion and clenched her fists

and

believed she was a part of it. She saw the crowd ahead of her, in he cottage home she had identified for him.

front of t

411

She joined the back of the crowd. She came behind them and watched as

they stared ahead, heard their whispered voices. She was not

noticed.

The rain fell on her hair and her face. The crowd was held back by policemen but she could still see the blackened walls of the room

through the gaping window. The arc-lights showed her the firemen

picking through the room.

She listened.

"They say it's a gas explosion."

"That's daft, there's no sodding gas."

She was behind them. They were not aware of her.

"Was it the new people?"

"It was the Perry woman, not the new people."

"Was it Meryl Perry?"

"Just her."

"Where's he? Where's Perry?"

"Never came, it was just Meryl who came."

"That's rough. I mean, it wasn't anything to do with her, was it?"

"Frank was in his house with his guards, it was Meryl. The stupid bastards got the wrong place, the wrong person... She slipped away.

She

left as she had come, unseen. She walked back, the rain clattering on

her. She felt small, weak. Emergency traffic passed her and

ignored

her as she cowered at the side of the road. She was little and

unimportant. She had thought that night, beside the car, as the

sound

of the explosion had burst in her ears, that she would love him, that she would be rewarded because he could not have done it without her and

he would take her with him and she would be, at last, a person of

consequence. She stumbled across the ground, went between the

412

thicket

and gorse clumps,

splashed in the rain puddles. She was Gladys Eva Jones. She was

an

insurance clerk, she was a failure. She was sobbing, as she had

sobbed

when her mother had carved criticism at her and her father had cursed her, as when the kids at school had ostracized her and the kids at college had turned their backs on her. She saw the outline of the car

and the rain spilling from the roof on to his shoulders. He had not moved.