He spilled them down on to the table. Harlech looked like he couldn't remember when Keeper had last volunteered his shout, Corinthian looked like it was Christmas morning, Token was grinning.
He sang. Big voice, might have had a trace of baritone, but he didn't know about such things…
Eshraq has only got one ball,
His Dad had two but they were very small, Khomeini has something similar,
But the Shah had no balls at all…
Heads turned. Business men dropping their pocket calculators and their financial reports, and Eshraq twisting his head to look back at them. "One more time," Keeper shouted.
Charlie has only got one ball,
His Dad had two but they were very small, Khomeini has something similar,
But the Shah had no balls at all…
And into the decibel joke competition. Loudest laughter wins.
Token's was filthy, Harlech's was rugby, Corinthian's was subtle, which meant he couldn't win, Keeper's was Irish.
Filth rules. A miniature emptied into Token's second can.
They were all laughing, all rating it a hell of a good morning, and Token had her arm looped up and over David's shoulder and she tousled the hair at the back of his neck.
"Well done, big boy."
He looked forward to what he could see of the shoulder six rows in front of him. He looked past the dark suits and the starched shirts and the disapproval.
"Just to let him know that I'll take his legs off at the knees."
"Go home, David."
"I will go home when I know what is happening."
"What makes you think that I know what's happening?"
"That's not an answer, Bill, and you know it."
"It's the answer you'll have to make do with."
"We could have knocked him and you blocked it."
"I told you, David, it was up the mountain from me."
The frustration showed. Park thwacked his right fist into the palm of his left hand. Parrish didn't look as though he were impressed. It was the first time that Park had ever shouted at Bill Parrish, because Parrish was a cuddly old sponge, and shouting at him was blowing bubbles out of the window. Too nice a man to shout at.
"For fuck's sake, Bill, we are talking about a heroin trafficker. We are talking about a heroin distributor. We are talking about a joker who is walking away from major dealing.
Since when did that sort of track get a block on it?"
"The instructions to me, the instructions that I passed on to you, were that Eshraq should not be lifted."
"It's criminal, Bill, and you know it."
"Me, I know nothing, and I do what I am told. You should do what you're told and go home."
David Park went to the door. He turned, he spat, "And I thought this was supposed to be a serious outfit, not a comic strip… "
"Don't give me that shit, Keeper."
"And I'd have thought you'd have honoured your promise."
"Listen… don't pull the old holy number with me… listen. The ACIO went to see the Home Secretary last night, said we were ready for a lift. The Home Secretary called him in his beauty sleep. I shouldn't be telling you, but the Home Secretary gave the instruction, that's how high it came from.
You want to know what's happening, I want to know what's happening. What I know is that on the top floor the ACIO and the CIO are not available to me. I will be told what is happening when they are ready to tell me, and you will be told when I am ready to tell you… So do me that favour and bugger off home.
… Did you ring your missus?"
"He's just a filthy little trafficker… "
"I hear he saw you off."
"What the hell…?"
"Merely making an observation… Did you ring your missus?"
"He's a cocky little swine."
"And you showed out to him – so go home and take your missus out and buy her a pretty dancing frock."
"Are you going to let them walk right over you?"
"That's a slogan, and that's not worthy of you… just go home."
A few minutes later, from his window, Bill Parrish saw David Park on the street below, walking through the traffic like it wasn't there. He thought that he might have destroyed one of his best young men, and he hadn't known how to stem the rot. He called up on the radio. He was told that Tango One was back at his flat. He had two of the April team on the flat, but the soul had gone out of the surveillance and the investigation, and the bugger of it was that no one had felt it necessary to tell Parrish why the block had gone down. Why take it seriously… it was only heroin, it was only kids' lives being chucked on the garbage heap, it was only evil bastards getting rich off misery. Why worry? Only bloody fools would worry. Bloody old fools like Parrish, and bloody young fools like Park. He knew that Park hadn't taken any leave for two years, and he hadn't put in for holiday time for the coming summer. He might just book a couple of weeks for the two of them on the Algarve, and handcuff Keeper to his Ann and kick him on to the plane. Could be sentimental, Bill Parrish, when he wanted to be. It was a crying shame, that couple was.
Another day… of course, there would be another day.
One step at a time, sweet Jesus. It was the favourite hymn of Bill Parrish who was a rare Christian once a year, late at night and Christmas Eve. One step at a time, sweet Jesus, the hymn that he liked to hear on the radio when he was in his car. One step at a time… and he ought to teach the words to Park, if the youngster hadn't gotten himself run over crossing Holborn and not looking. He rang the ACIO's extension, and was told he was in a meeting. He rang the Bossman's extension, and was told he was in conference. One step at a time, sweet Jesus… it was only heroin.
He sat on the floor of his prison room beside the door. He had worked out the angles of vision from the peephole in the door, and he believed that where he sat he was hidden if his guards checked at the peephole before entering. He sat on the floor in his underpants and his vest and his socks. He had used the pillow on his bed and his rolled up shirt and his bunched together trousers to make a shape under the blanket.
He always slept with the blanket over his head, to shut out the ceiling light. He had put his shoes at the end of the bed and half covered them with the blanket. A long time he had listened at the door before making the preparations, long enough to satisfy himself that he was not watched.
They had shamed Mattie Furniss, humiliated him. To break that shame he would kill. He would try, damned hard, to kill.
Eventually the Mullah remembered Juliette Eshraq. Not well, of course, but he remembered her.
He had to remember her. If he had not remembered her then he would have been the only living being amongst close to two thousand present at the hanging who had forgotten Juliette Eshraq. The investigator thought it a great spur to memory, his information that the brother of Juliette Eshraq was coming to Iran with an armour-piercing missile on his shoulder, and revenge in his mind.
"But you are assured, Excellency, of my best endeavours.
It is in my interests, also, that the brother of Juliette Eshraq be found. If he is not found then it is me that he will come lor, after he has gone to you."
When he left the Mullah, now very clear in his recollection of Juliette Eshraq who had smiled at the crowd who had come to see her lifted high on the crane's arm, he went to his own office in the capital and there he made the arrangements for the watching of an official in the Harbourmaster's office at Bandar Abbas, and of a merchant in carpets, and of an engineer who repaired broken lorries.
It would be late in the evening before he could catch a military flight back from Tehran to Tabriz.
Go for it, that was the Major's oft-repealed injunction at the Fort. Go for it.
"You go for it, gentlemen, because if you're going to be all namby-pamby then you'll fail, and after you've failed then you'll wish to Christ that you'd never tried. If you like living then you go for it, because if you don't go for it then you won't be living."