18
Sunday morning, and the light catching the east side of the Lane. Empty streets around the building, no rubbish wagons, no commuters, no office workers. The buses were few and far between, there were taxis cruising without hope.
The bin beside Park's desk was half filled with cardboard drinking beakers. He had long before exhausted the dispenser, which would not be filled again until early on the Monday, and he had been reduced to making his own coffee, no milk left over the weekend. Stiff black coffee to sustain him.
Some of it he had read before, but through the night he had punched up on to his console screen everything that the ID's computer had to offer on Turkey and Iran. That was his way.
And a hell of an amount there was… And he read again what little had been fed into CEDRIC on Charlie Eshraq. It was his way to arm himself with information, and it was also his way to dig himself a pit when circumstances seemed about to crush him. He couldn't have gone home, not after the visit to Century. Better to get himself back to the Lane, and to get his head in front of the screen. He'd been alone until dawn, until Token had shown. She'd shown, and then she'd gone heaven knew where and come back with bacon rolls.
She sat at the desk opposite him. He was latching the plastic sheet over the console.
"I spoke to Bill last night, when he'd got home."
"Did you now?"
"He said you'd had a pretty rotten evening."
"And he was right."
"He said that Duggie took your wife home."
"I asked him to."
"He said that you might be in need of looking after."
She didn't wear make-up, and she hadn't combed her short hair, and her anorak was slung on the hook on the wall between the windows that looked down on to New Fetter Lane. She wore a sweatshirt that was tight over her radio transmitter. He thought that he knew what she was saying, what Parrish had said to her.
"Have you finished?"
"I've finished with the computer, I don't know what else I've finished with."
"Another day, another dime, David."
"You know what…? Last night they walked all over us.
We were the little chappies who had stepped out of their depth, and we were being told how to behave, and the Chief took it… I still feel sick."
"Like I said, another day. Do you want to come home with me?"
"What for?"
"Don't be a cretin… "
"I'm going home, got to change."
"Might be best to give home a miss."
She was the girl he ought to have married, that's what he thought. He knew why she offered her place, her bed. He knew why she was on offer, if she had spoken to Bill Parrish on the phone.
"Thanks," he said.
He came round the desk and when she stood he put his arms around her shoulders and he kissed her forehead. It was a soft kiss, as if she was his sister, as if she could only ever be a friend.
"Don't let the bastards hurt you, David."
He slung his suit jacket over his shoulder. Still in the buttonhole was the red rose that Ann had said he should wear for the dance. He walked out on Token, who would have taken him home to her bed. He started up the car. It was a fast drive through the desert that was the city and it took him little more than an hour to reach home, and he'd bought flowers at a railway station stall.
She'd left the lights on.
The lights were on in the hall and in the bedroom and in the bathroom.
She had left the wardrobe door open, and inside the wardrobe there was a chasm, her dresses gone. The bed wasn't made, and the envelope was on the pillow, the pillow, for God's sake.
He went into the bathroom because he thought that he was going to throw up, and her dressing gown was on the bathmat and her bath towel, and beside her bath towel was his.
Perhaps that was the way it always was, that a marriage ended. The flowers were in the kitchen sink and he didn't know how to make a display of them.
There was a light knock at the door. Mrs Ferguson, beckoning Carter out. He went, and smiled an apology at Mattie.
If there was a way back then Mattie did not know it. He paced in the room. He faced the alternatives, and his future.
There was no going back. To go back, to admit the lie, that was resignation. He was a member of the Service, and if the lie were admitted then he would be out of the Service.
"Sorry, Mattie, so sorry to have abandoned you. The telephone is one of the great tyrannies of modern life. Things are a little more confused. Our message to our man in Tehran, the message for him to abort, it didn't get through."
"Why not?"
"Seems that our man had disappeared, couldn't be traced.
That's a shame."
A long sad silence in the room. And Henry's eyes never left Mattie's face. He walked across the carpet and he stood in front of Mattie.
"What I've always heard, and you know that I've no personal experience, when you start talking under pressure then you cannot ration yourself. If you start then you have to finish," he said.
The explosion. "Damn you, how many times do I have to tell you?"
"I think we'll have a walk down to the pub, you'd like that, wouldn't you, Mattie? I'll ask George to tether the hound."
The message was very faint.
The message from the short wave transmitter, that was in itself hardly larger than a cornflakes packet, was carried the 90 miles from Bandar Abbas, across the shipping lanes of the Straits of Hormuz to the listening antennae on the summit of the Jebal Harim in Oman.
Only the height of the Jebal Harim, 6,867 feet above sea level, enabled the message to be monitored. It was known by the Service that the transmitter could reach the antennae with short messages, and it had been given to the official who worked in the Harbourmaster's office for use only in emergency.
He knew his situation was critical, he knew he was being watched.
He sent the one short message.
He was a man filled with fear that spilled towards terror.
And that afternoon he prayed to his God that he would have the protection of Mr Matthew Furniss, and the colleagues of Mr Furniss.
Park was waved forward by the Military Police corporal.
There was no salute. A Ford Escort didn't warrant a salute from a corporal who was losing Sunday at home. Park drove forward, bumping over the rutted dirt track, and he parked beside the Suzuki jeep. On the far side of the jeep was a black Rover, newly registered and the driver was quietly polishing the paintwork and minding his own business. Park had changed at home. After he had tidied the bathroom and made the bed that Harlech had been in, then he had stripped off his suit and put the rose from his buttonhole in water, and put on jeans and a sweater.
He walked towards Charlie Eshraq. Eshraq stood with the man, the supercilious and drawling creep, who had lectured Park at Century.
He walked towards them, and their conversation didn't hesitate.
"… So, that's it?"
"That is it, Mr Eshraq. Mr Park will accompany you to the border. You will not attempt to impede his job. You don't fool with him and he has been told not to play silly buggers with you. Got it?"
"And I get the weapons?"
"Mr Eshraq, if you were not getting the weapons then this afternoon's exercise would be somewhat pointless."
"I don't get to see Mr Furniss?"
"You will be handled from Ankara, good chap there."
"Why do I not see Mr Furniss?"
"Because from inside Iran you will need to deal with someone else. All that will be explained to you once you are in Turkey. Good luck, we'll be rooting for you."
The driver had finished his polishing, and had started up the Rover. There were no farewells. The car drove away.
In the cause of duty… Park walked to Charlie Eshraq.
"I'm David Park."
"No, you're not, you're April Five, but you may call me Charlie."