A couple of ads flashed by, but Porter didn’t feel like moving. Where would he go, anyway?
The presenter came back on air, with an interview with Doug Freeman, the producer who’d been in the van when it was held up. It had been a short and terrifying experience, he said. They had been driving along a main road, when suddenly their way was blocked. There were six men in total. At first they thought it was a robbery — bandits were everywhere in the Lebanon once you got away from Beirut. But they didn’t want the cameras, or the van, or any of their credit cards. ‘They wanted Katie,’ said Freeman, looking straight at the camera. ‘They knew who she was, and they’d come to get her.’
‘Do you think they meant to harm her, Doug?’
‘I hope not,’ he replied. ‘Katie is one of the finest reporters I have ever worked with.’ He paused, wiping the sweat of his face. ‘Our prayers are with her this morning.’
Porter could feel a tap on his shoulder. As he turned round, a young girl was standing right next to him. She was wearing a Travel Inn uniform, and name tag pinned to her chest said Sarah. From the way her nose was wrinkling up, Porter could tell she was freaked out just to be standing next to him. ‘I’m going to have to ask you to leave, sir,’ she said.
‘One minute,’ snapped Porter.
‘I —’
‘One minute, I said.’
He looked back towards the screen. The words ‘breaking news’ were flashing on the screen once again.
‘And now we can go over live to Downing Street, where Sir Peregrine Collinson, the Prime Minister’s special envoy to the Middle East, will be speaking live to Sky’s Adam Boulton. Adam, what can you tell us?’
Porter kept watching. Collinson, he thought. The last time I saw you, you were puking up in the corner because you were too afraid to carry on with the mission. You should have taken the rap for what went wrong on that mission. Not me.
‘As most viewers will know,’ began Boulton, looking into the camera. ‘Sir Peregrine Collinson is one of Britain’s most decorated fighting men, with a book of military memoirs still on the best-seller lists. Now we learn that Sir Perry has been put in charge of securing the release of Katie Dartmouth.’
Porter watched as the camera panned out to show a tall man, elegantly suited, and with his dusty blond hair just a touch longer than would ever have been permitted when he was still in the army. It’s been seventeen years, reflected Porter.
‘What can you tell us, Sir Perry?’ asked Boulton.
Collinson pursed his lips and furrowed his brow thoughtfully. He conjured up an air of seriousness. ‘There’s only so much we can say at this stage, Adam,’ he began. ‘We don’t know who has taken Katie Dartmouth, where they’ve taken her, or what they want. But the PM has asked me to take full charge of the investigation, and I can assure you that every muscle we possess will be strained to bring Katie back safely.’
‘And you really don’t have any clue where she is?’
Collinson shook his head. ‘At this stage, I’m afraid there is nothing firm to go on. All of our efforts, however, will be devoted to getting her back. There may be testing hours and days ahead, but together we will pull through them.’
As Porter watched the screen, he pondered how much better the years had been to Collinson than they had been to him. After coming back from the raid in Lebanon, he knew he’d never been able to get himself back on the level again. The physical damage to his hand healed in time, but the mental damage remained as fresh and raw as if he’d been wounded only yesterday. He’d done his best to reintegrate himself back into the Regiment, but all the men seemed to know that Porter was the guy who’d spared the life of an Arab kid who had then killed three of their men. They didn’t say anything to his face, but then they didn’t need to. He could see it in their eyes. He could feel it in the way he was shunned in the bar. He could sense it in the way no one was ever going to trust him again. When the chips were down, no one could count on John Porter. And the Regiment didn’t have much space for those who couldn’t be relied on.
Within three years, he’d left active service, and been put on firing-range duty: there was no more humiliating posting for a Regiment man. After another couple of years, he’d left the army completely. The only career he’d ever planned for himself was over. How do you put your life back together after something like that? Porter wondered. If there was an answer, he’d never found it.
Porter could suddenly feel a hand on his shoulder. As he spun round, Dan was looking straight at him. ‘I thought I told you to piss off.’
‘I’m just —’ started Porter.
‘You’re just stinking the place up,’ snapped Dan. ‘Now scarper before I call the police and get you banged up for the night.’
Porter was about to say something, but the words stalled on his lips. The aching in his head was terrible, and the pain in his left leg was growing worse: a tingling sensation, that seemed to numb him all the way up to the knee. With his head bowed, he started walking.
‘The bloody back door,’ shouted Dan.
Porter ignored him, and kept on walking. He stepped out of the foyer of the Travel Inn into a murky, overcast street. There was a McDonald’s round the corner, and he glanced towards the bins, but so far as he could see they’d been emptied recently. No chance of getting a bite to eat there then, he reflected.
He walked slowly across the river. There was a hole in one of the old canvas shoes he was wearing, and it was letting in the dirt, but his left leg was already in such terrible condition, it probably didn’t make any difference. There were plenty of people around him as he walked across the bridge, and up the busy road that led towards the prosperous houses, shops and bars of Chelsea and Fulham.
‘Could you spare me some money?’ he mumbled to a man who was walking past him towards the tube station.
The man looked away, not saying anything.
‘Just a couple of quid to help me out,’ Porter muttered to another guy who standing right next to him.
He snapped something in what sounded like Polish, then headed past him.
‘A quid for a cup of tea, love,’ he said, trying to meet the brown eyes of a girl who was rummaging around in her handbag for a ringing mobile phone.
She said nothing, glanced at him once, then started smiling as she answered the phone.
‘Jesus,’ Porter muttered. ‘Doesn’t anyone …’
A woman brushed passed him, ignoring him as he wobbled on his feet. His head was spinning and he was having trouble concentrating. ‘Watch where you’re fucking going,’ he shouted.
She turned round and looked at him. She was forty or so, with dark brown hair, a well-cut black trouser suit, and a briefcase under her arm. ‘Piss off,’ she snapped sharply. ‘Some of us have got jobs to get to.’
Porter walked towards her menacingly. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do. He couldn’t even think straight. The splitting, beating noise in his head was getting worse. There were stars flashing in front of his eyes, and he was finding it hard to balance. He was swaying as he walked, unsure how much longer his feet would support him. ‘Watch your fucking mouth,’ he shouted, surprising himself with the strength and anger he put into the words. ‘You know nothing about me. Fucking nothing.’
He knelt down. She had already turned and fled, but as she’d moved swiftly away she’d dropped her purse from her handbag. Quickly, making sure nobody could see him, Porter slipped the wallet into his ragged, filthy jumper and started to walk away. He’d moved on a hundred yards towards the New King’s Road before he paused to check what was inside. Fifty pounds, he noted with pleasure. In crisp ten-pound notes. That and a couple of credit cards.