‘Then he came into my room and untied me.’ Sophie added. ‘I was going mad with worry – I guessed that the shooting meant that you had arrived.’ She grinned suddenly. ‘I never doubted that you would – even if you did take your time about it!’
‘We now have four more captives, including the new leader. Would you mind de-brainwashing them? Even if they won’t agree to go back in the field for us, a change in their attitude might be helpful.’
I sighed, rather reluctant. ‘All right, and I want to see that Special Branch man to thank him personally. But then we need a break.’
‘No problem!’ He said cheerfully. ‘We actually have a place for you both, very remote, so you can recover in peace.’
He was right. The “place” turned out to be an isolated wooden chalet on the Essex coast. It was built just on the landward side of a sea wall, close to an estuary, giving a view from the veranda of the North Sea stretching to the horizon. The wall sloped down to a narrow sandy beach. In contrast, the estuary was surrounded by mudflats formed of river deposits, covered at high tide. The chalet was reached only by a long, narrow road between the drained pasturelands, little more than a track, with the nearest village so far away it was out of sight. We were entirely alone.
It was now full summer and the weather was kind. Day after day dawned bright and clear, the huge sky making the landscape seem small-scale and insignificant. The chalet had been well-stocked with necessities, so we had nothing to do except relax and enjoy ourselves.
We would walk each day along a path beside the estuary, becoming familiar with the way its appearance and cycles of activity varied with the tide. At low tide, the mudflats teemed with birds. The home contained some guides to the wildlife so we tried to identify as many as we could. The various gulls were easy enough to spot (although we had to learn to distinguish the more slender terns), as were the black-white-and-brown shelducks, filtering the surface mud with their orange beaks. The smaller brown birds scurrying about were more of a challenge.
We also walked along the beach, noting the different bird life and what the sea cast up on the shore. The strange, black, pillow-like fish egg cases were frequently washed up, as were the long, narrow razor shells and the coiled whelk shells. Odd bits of well-worn driftwood were common and so, sadly, were the indestructible plastic remnants of our throw-away society.
Of course, I could not resist the sea. I felt it drawing me from the first day we arrived and was soon swimming far out each day, until the sea wall was just a line on the horizon with the chalet a small bump. Sophie came with me sometimes – she was a good swimmer and there were fins and snorkels in the chalet, but she could not keep up and anyway found the water too cold to stay in for long.
I especially loved diving down to the sea bed and cruising just above it. It was mostly rippled sand, with the occasional stony outcrops liberally covered with molluscs and seaweed. Crabs and shrimps scurried away from my shadow, fish darted past, and sometimes the sand erupted as a flatfish decided I had come too close and broke cover to swim away. Occasionally I would sense more complex life and find a seal – each of us examining the other with curiosity. I realised that I could detect the presence of animal minds and, with the more intelligent species, even gain some feeling for their mood.
The sea seemed to have a healing effect on me – not just physically, but psychologically. It was like a giant, cool, womb, a place to immerse my mind as well as my body.
We also talked – a lot. I learned about Sophie’s world, the way in which her perspective on life had become channelled into assessing all information for its potential as a news item. Her reaction to that was to escape into poetry, rather surprising me with her preference for the Romantics. As she pointed out, she needed their innocent idealism as an antidote to the murk she normally had to delve in.
It seemed that there was nothing about me that she didn’t want to know. I found myself explaining about my reaction against my religious upbringing, the constant rivalry and arguments with Luke and, more awkwardly, my inability to maintain relationships for very long: I had never married, and none of my girlfriends had lasted for more than three years. I picked up the impression that she was determined to change that pattern. She even did her best to become interested in the library of jazz music I had brought with me.
One day Sophie was in a more than usually contemplative mood, and was clearly trying to hide something from me. ‘Out with it,’ I commanded jokingly.
‘Well, I’m not certain yet, but I think I might be pregnant.’
I gaped at her for a second. ‘But that’s impossible – I had a vasectomy long ago!’
‘Perhaps that’s something else that got repaired.’
I placed my hand on her abdomen and scanned. Nothing approaching a mind was detectable, but there was definitely something unusual about her womb. I looked at her in wonder. ‘I think you might be right!’
‘Do you mind?’
I thought about that. The paternal instinct had passed me by and I had never contemplated having children, but I now felt confusion. ‘I’ll have to get used to that idea!’ I joked, privately wondering what kind of baby my new genes might produce.
‘Oh, you will!’ She snuggled up to me confidently.
It was an idyllic time, and days flowed into weeks without us noticing. There was a radio but we never turned it on. There was a phone but it never rang, and we never used it. There was no post, no papers. Of course, it could not last.
I woke in the night, feeling uneasy. My thoughts immediately went to Sophie lying next to me, but she was fast asleep. I scanned around the house, but could find nothing wrong. Puzzled, I got up and went over to the windows, quietly sliding them open so I could walk out onto the veranda. I looked out to sea, but it was a moonless night and the stars were covered with a thin layer of cloud, so even my eyes could detect little.
Then I let my special sense flow outwards – and it recoiled. Three groups of four men, each group in a small inflatable boat, were paddling for the shore. Further out I could sense more men, probably in the larger craft which had brought them. Their minds were bright with excitement, with lethal ferocity. And they were coming for me.
I moved swiftly back into the house. ‘Sophie, wake up and put some clothes on. Now.’ She didn’t argue but got up immediately. I went into the living room and picked up the phone to dial an almost forgotten number. It was answered instantly, and I briefly described what was happening, then rang off.
Sophie was now ready – and the boats were close to the shore. I whispered an explanation as we crept out of the back of the house, and ran as fast as we could along the road. There was no obvious cover except for drainage ditches beside the road, and we dived down into one when I sensed that the first of the men was climbing up the sea wall.
Their attack on the chalet was fast and well coordinated. Grenades were hurled through the windows, shattering the structure with fragments, then some of the men charged into the building, bursts of fire hammering from their weapons. There was a pause of a couple of minutes before they re-emerged, turning back to throw what must have been thermite grenades; the chalet burst into flames. In the light of the fire I could see that they were all carrying guns, and had odd bulges on their foreheads – night vision equipment, I realised. Then they started looking for us.
We were close to a bridge over the ditch, which provided an access from the road onto the farmland. In fact, it wasn’t so much a bridge as a tubular concrete pipe with earth piled on top. I pushed Sophie into the pipe and then moved back towards the men. I had to attack, or they would soon find us anyway.