Big moment. The failure of the back-stop. The light caught him, dropped him. He was between two rocks and the waves beat against him. How would it end? A good chance that he would be pitched off the dinghy and dumped into the water and the first wave would hurl him against the rock face. Would be a quick finish… Tried to look for the girl’s face. He used a leg. Managed to find the strength because he had the image of her, and the wind tore her hair, a small sad laugh, and… he stamped and pushed and the dinghy was freed, went in a tight circle, then bounced him against the far edge of the rock and he lingered there for tantalising seconds, then the dinghy moved and the current held it and the wind caught the sides. He moved on, and looked back, and saw a big shadow on the shore. It moved with a rolling, uneven gait as if it were disabled. The light on the rock swerved again and held it for a moment, then disappeared and found Gaz and left him and shone out across the open water. When the beam completed its circle and again lit that part of the shore above the rock, close to low twisted trees, the bear was gone. Gaz rubbed at his eyes. A delusion? An hallucination? Something that he had seen or imagined, or dreamed of? Where it had moved, and where the light had made bright diamonds of its eyes, was deserted.
Two more ships passed him. One was a fishing boat and the other was a freighter, and they were far out in the inlet channel and he was tossed some more by the waves they threw at him. More spray came in and his efforts to ladle out the water failed to match what splashed in. He thought the cold was worse. He had a question in his mind. Wanted it asked and needed it answered.
‘What I did, had it any value?’
Not a big voice, he hardly heard it. Waited for the reply but in his ears were only the swirl of the waves and the singing of the wind, and carried to him across the white caps were the diminishing sounds of the engines of the trawler and the freighter.
‘What I did, will it make a difference?’
He listened. The grey cloud still blanketed him and a mist had formed. Harder to see ahead and the current was still strong and the wind was prodding him towards the open sea. Listened for Knacker and his smooth talk, and for Alice and Fee who would be encouraging and talk about assessments still being made but the picture, on the whole, being good. Listened for the words from Timofey and Natacha that would lift him, and those of the hunter who had carried him to the back-stop opportunity. Listened for what the officer would tell him, and wondered where he was, what he did, whether the reading of him had been true or was merely wishful thinking. Heard nothing.
‘Was it failure, was it for nothing?’
Too tired now to care.
“If anyone were to ask me, was Matchless a failure, all for nothing, I would say to their face that they are ignorant. Of course it made a difference, and one of value. Might just be that you and those now posturing on the fifth floor have not the wit to realise it.”
Knacker faced him, the new broom’s message-boy.
“I understand your irritation. Way above my pay grade. The instruction is from Internal Security.” The young man, Dominic, had a gentle voice and a shuffling step and a wobbling lower lip, and had shaved poorly that morning, but did not back off.
“I have personal items inside that I wish to collect.”
“Am very sorry, but my instructions are clear. We have first call on the rooms and after completion of our work then you may enter, also your assistants, for a supervised period not exceeding ten minutes. Then the area is to be locked, sealed, and finally returned to the landlords. I am very sorry, but it is over, on D-G Acting’s say-so.”
A church clock chimed the half hour. Thirty minutes past seven o’clock, steady rain falling on the pavement and traffic queuing to get north over the bridges for the run into central London. Unlikely to be play that morning at either the Oval cricket ground or at Lords, and even more unlikely that Knacker would get past Dominic, rated as an able and boring recruit who would go far because of his lack of eccentricity. And behind Dominic were a pair of men in the usual rubbish uniform of the security detaiclass="underline" jeans, leather coats, shades – and it was raining and half dark.
“How long will this charade take?”
“Three or four hours. My apologies but matters are out of my hands. Could be longer. Your assistants are upstairs, Alice Holmes and Tracey Dawkins, and have proved most cooperative, so it may be nearer three. Should be out by late morning. We started at five, both of them here then. I really would suggest that you go and find some breakfast and a cup of tea.”
That hurt… but Knacker had lived a life of inciting men and women to turn against their own, did not champion loyalties. They had landed forty-five minutes after midnight at Gatwick. He had gone back to his suburban home, been there barely two hours, showered and changed and dumped soiled clothes and the sodden suit in which he had travelled, had catnapped beside Maude before his alarm had gone. Had caught the train to Waterloo, then walked along the embankment to Kennington Lane, and had seen the knot of men and women on the pavement outside the Yard. They’d been on a fag break, and piled inside the door were plastic bags bulging with files and electronics, even the bloody raincoat that he kept there… Hurt more than he would show that his girls had jumped ship. Problem was for Knacker that he preached betrayal, gloried in it. He supposed that he could go and find a sandwich bar where there would be hot coffee and a builder’s breakfast, and when he returned the door would be double-locked, and there would be a note with a number and an address further along the road where his personal items were temporarily held. Clients at the taxi company counter, next door, watched them with interest, and a wry grin was on the face of the principal at the gentlemen’s tailor on the other side where they performed miracles letting out trousers for older men and… He smiled. Could in fact have knifed the little bastard, Dominic, then could have packed him off to a souk in Aleppo or Mosul and wiped the smugness off his face. But just smiled.
“I wish you a good career – and a good day.”
He walked away from Dominic and the heavies with him, then rang Arthur Jennings. God, the poor wretch sounded low.
Knacker was asked how it had gone, ‘your show’. Had he been able to tie all the loose ends, as he usually did?
“Went well. Good result. The creature we targeted is up with the angels. Lost our man but we think it’s clean and deniable. Will be well received in the camps and where people from the region of that benighted village are gathered. Will get us solid support… except that we may not have a footprint in those parts if this vandal, illiterate and unimaginative, has his way on the fifth floor.”
He was told the rug had been pulled, that Arthur Jennings had wanted to call a meeting of the Round Table the next day at lunchtime. They could not do it, the pub management said, had a booking for a Pilates class. Have to be another day.
He rang off. If there was ‘another day’ he doubted he would attend. He would not enjoy the obsequies for his work, his style. He walked away. A dinosaur, a representative of a species that teetered on the verge of extinction . . and wondered if, in that great building at the end of the road, Ceausescu Towers, he would ever be missed, indeed if his name would ever be spoken again. It had been a good show, no regrets, what a wheat collector might have said, and saw that spinning coin flying high, stalling, then dropping, splashing into a mud pool. Had left his mark there.
He walked tall, no slouch of failure. A good show, and on Knacker’s watch. And all finished neatly, tidily, his hallmark.