The darkness has settled in now and Adrian is forced to concentrate on placing his feet. There are no street lights, the road is uneven. They are taking a different route to the petrol station, he notices, one that passes through the streets around the square. His companion has stopped talking. He can no longer hear the other man’s footfall. He stops and turns.
The first blow pitches him forward. There follows the split-second delay before he realises he has been hit. The hot cold flush. Finally the pain, billowing through his body like ink in water. The blow to the back of his head is followed by a kick to the base of his spine, which forces the air out of his chest. A third blow lands on the back of his neck and his shoulders. Something hard, wood or metal. Adrian’s knees buckle. He staggers. His impulse is to run. He tries and fails, his legs give way. He’d like to call out, but his lungs are airless. His face hits the dirt. The dirt is soft and cool. Sharp kicks to his side. Please, no more pain. Adrian concentrates on trying to speak, to say something, but he can only gasp. He starts to crawl away, aware even in the moment of the indignity. He doesn’t care. He thinks of internal damage, his kidneys, his liver. Maybe whoever it is intends to kill him. If only they would say what they want he would give it to them. Nausea rises in the wake of the pain. His mouth fills with saliva. He wants to retch. Still on all fours, he heaves drily. The nausea overwhelms him. The last thing he sees, before he blacks out, is a street dog, watching from the side of the road.
He is dreaming. Swimming off a Norfolk beach, when he was a child. Except that there are black children fishing off the rocks. The dream has a soundtrack, the words of the song keep coming back to him. The harder they come, the harder they’ll fall, one and all. He smiles in his sleep. It’s funny.
Now Kai is in the dream, talking to him. What’s Kai doing here? He tries to answer but his lips won’t form the words. He can’t speak. Adrian doesn’t want Kai to go away, only he’s trapped on the other side of the dream.
CHAPTER 24
I slept in the chair, unable — in both senses — to lower myself to the floor. I slept for perhaps two hours, doubled over myself. Nobody knew where I was except Johnson. I could see what he was doing. Leaving me to ruminate, to soften me up — the phrase they used in films.
I tried to focus on the facts at hand. I had not been arrested or charged with anything. So far I had cooperated. Johnson had trampled all over my goodwill. He was trying to drive me into a corner, provoke me into behaving as though I had something to hide. Well, there was nothing. So far Johnson had accused me of precisely nothing. Then again, how exactly do you prove nothing? How do you fight nothing? The thoughts turned over and over in my mind.
At one point, in the depth of the night, I had a sudden image of myself from the outside. A dark, untidy shape, hunched over itself on a chair in that small and empty room. My shape, my outline, in my mind’s eye, was devoid of detail. It was not me, but the shadow of me, of what remained. It was as though I had already disappeared. I am not one given to flights of fancy, nevertheless I could not control the thoughts that emerged, indistinctly, from sulphurous places in my mind.
Once I woke from dozing with a start, certain I had heard the sound of a cry. I listened. From somewhere in the building I heard a thump, then nothing. Impossible to know whether I had imagined the sound, if it had come from outside or been part of my dreams.
When dawn came I was exhausted, relieved the night was over, even knowing that in all likelihood the day ahead would be a difficult one. At least it held some hope — if only for the prospect of progress. Today was Saturday. Friday morning, when I’d been brought here. Normally I would be drinking coffee at home, reviewing the newspapers. Nobody was expecting me, I had no social engagements.
At ten o’clock a guard came for me. I could smell the foulness of my own breath, felt the rough stubble on my chin, the flakes of dried sweat under my arms. My clothes were stained and crumpled. I’d eaten nothing since I was brought in the day before. The last drink I’d had was when I’d drunk some water out of my cupped hand at the basin when I went to the lavatory.
My escort didn’t look at me but pushed me by the shoulder out of the door. We turned left back towards the entrance of the building. For a brief moment I dared to hope perhaps I was being released. I was wrong. We turned away from the entrance and went up two flights of stairs to another floor, another passage, another room. My guard opened the door and pushed me inside. I was in Johnson’s office. He was seated at his desk.
His first words to me were, ‘I am sorry, Mr Cole, it was not my intention to delay you overnight. A matter of some urgency arose. Please accept my apologies.’ He didn’t offer me a seat. I remained where I was, standing before him. He repeated his apology, placing the emphasis on the first word, ‘Please,’ and then in a softer voice — a technique which served to heighten the sense of threat and to increase the impression he was giving an order, ‘accept my apologies.’
‘Very well.’ If that was what was required.
‘Please sit down.’
I sat.
‘Can I get you anything?’
I was hoarse. I needed a drink of water. He called the guard and ordered him to bring a jug of water and a glass. Upon his desk lay an open pink folder containing a number of papers. While I drank, he leafed through them. All very theatrical. I remember his old man’s hands, wizened and small, like those of an ancient Chinaman. He reminded me of my old headmaster, who was given to this sort of display, designed to demonstrate who was boss.
‘I’ve been reviewing your file.’
What the hell? ‘What file?’
He ignored me. ‘You recently attempted to publish a political tract.’
‘I’ve done nothing of the sort,’ I replied.
‘Is that so?’ He looked at me directly.
‘That’s right,’ I said. About this I was confident. A thought formed. No, I daren’t allow myself to think it. There’d been a mix-up. A mistake. Quite possibly Johnson’s. I might yet get one over him. But it wouldn’t do to goad him, provoking him into justifying himself. I kept my voice neutral as I continued, ‘I think there’s some confusion, a mix-up. Perhaps somebody has mixed me up me with another person.’ I deliberately avoided use of the second nominative pronoun. Not his mistake, someone’s mistake. Men concerned with power and the display of it required some kind of face-saving device.
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know, one of your investigating officers, perhaps.’
‘I am not asking you who made this error, as you claim. I am asking who you are saying I have confused you with?’
That threw me, I confess, the way he took it right back to himself: ‘I don’t know,’ I replied.
‘You have somebody in mind? Somebody else who has published a political tract? A colleague, perhaps?’
‘No. I don’t.’ He had a confounding way about him, as unreadable and unpredictable as a cat. I said, ‘I’m just telling you I haven’t attempted to publish any tract or manifesto, or any political writing of any sort. I don’t involve myself in politics.’