The morning was not yet finished, but the day had already been long; The meeting at the coast, the extraction of the packet from the boat's kitchen, the retrieval of monies, the settling of the matter of the boat's driver, more than five hundred kilometres of driving with the Engineer at the wheel and the return to the capital — he was drained. Ajaq needed to sleep before he met the young man. When he had slept he would have the charm and the mesmerizing gaze in his eyes that would calm the one who wished for martyrdom. And the Engineer, also, needed sleep because his fingers must be nimble and supple for the circuits and the wiring.
For part of Muhammad Ajaq there might have been, here, a sense of homecoming. Half of his heritage, his blood, was here. He hated that half…That blood had fashioned him, made him what he was.
They walked in the rain away from the station.
The body floated face down. It was wedged under the slats of the pontoon at the far extremity of the marina's spider legs. The pontoon rested on large plastic drums that gave it buoyancy and also prevented the body being carried by tide or current from under the pontoon. It was beside the berth of a luxury launch that, when the boating season for weekend sailors started, would be the same centre of envied attraction as it had been since the Joker of the Pack had first been moored at Kingswear. Unless a member of the marina's permanent staff or a yachtsman came along that far pontoon, then stopped and peered directly down through those slats, the body might remain undiscovered for several days. If Dennis Foulkes was not seen for a week or two that would not have been remarkable, and his absence from the Joker of the Pack would arouse no suspicion. The launch, tethered to the pontoon, was closed up and none of the portholes or bridge windows gave a view into the galley. An opened bottle of whisky lay on the tiled floor, which was stained below it. When the body was found and retrieved, and the hatches forced open, an impression would be left of a lonely man drinking to a state of intoxication, then coming on deck, losing his footing, slipping, falling — and drowning. A subsequent post-mortem would find whisky traces in his stomach tubes, and marina water in his lungs, no marks of violence on his skin. A forensic search of the launch would identify no other individuals as having been present in the galley on the night of Dennis Foulkes's death: they had worn disposable rubber gloves. The CCTV camera at the marina's gate would not show the arrival of individuals and their walk through the reception area: they had come by dinghy on a route beyond the reach of the lens. A sniffer dog, with an excellent nose, trained by the police or Customs, might have located the faint traces of explosives in a galley cupboard: the chance of such a dog being used, when the scenario of the cadaver's death was so obvious, were minimal. The killing had been done with care.
Its legs and arms splayed out, zebra stripes of light on its back, the body lay — unfound and unmourned — under the pontoon's slats, the last tied knot of a conspiracy's small loose end.
He saw him, could not miss him. The leather coat was open and the white of the swan was clear and prominent on his chest. Ramzi recognized the bird: they glided on the Derwent river, which split the city that was his home, and made nests on an island close to the bridge that linked the shopping centre to the main bypass round Derby and the county cricket field. It had been in the evening paper, last month, that white kids had thrown stones from the bridge's parapet at the swans' nests with the intention of breaking the eggs, and his mother had said it was disgraceful behaviour. Ramzi crossed the concourse, remembered what he had been told to say and came close to the young man from behind his shoulder. Ramzi said, 'Is that the work of the painter Asselyn?'
There was a short gasp, a fraction of hesitation, the turn of a brain's flywheel, then the smile. 'It is the work of Jan Asselyn…Yes, Jan Asselyn.'
He saw relief split across the young man's face. He had been told that he should use no names and that conversation should be limited to the briefest exchange. But the relief at the approach, the successful exchange of the coded greeting and the response killed his intentions. 'I am Ramzi, and I am sorry to have been late. Please, when we meet with others do not say that I was late.'
'My name is Ibrahim. I won't speak of it.'
Ramzi hugged him. Ramzi was heavy to the point of obesity but he used weights and reckoned his bulk gave him authority. He had been recruited twenty-one months before at a cultural centre in the Normanton district of the city after announcing his determination to be a part of the armed struggle against the oppression of Muslims — in Britain, Checbnya, Kashmir, Iraq, anywhere. He had been told then that his value to the armed struggle dictated he went home, never returned to the cultural centre, and 'slept' till he was woken. He had not believed that the terms of his recruitment represented inadequacy, but held the opinion that his talents would be employed in a strike of major proportions. Roused from sleep a week earlier, he had assumed the role of 'muscle' in the cell that was coming together. Once, before the call, and long ago, Ramzi had boasted that his destiny was martyrdom. In his bear grip, he felt the frailty of the young man, Ibrahim, the prominent bones of his shoulders and the slightness of his arms. For a moment he thought of their destruction.
Ramzi towered over him. 'We should go. We are going to walk. It is quite a long way but there are cameras on the buses and trains. We will seem to part now — cameras are watching us. I will be ahead of you and you will follow…'
'Why do the cameras matter?' The question was asked with simplicity, in good but accented English, and seemed to demand honesty.
Ramzi had been told by the woman — who knew everything, who had arrogance — that the cell had been woken and afterwards would return to a second long sleep. The cameras were important because after the strike the cell would disband and wait for a call to reactivate them, their identities safeguarded.
Ramzi said limply, 'It's what I was told.'
Ramzi hugged him again, tighter, heard the breath hiss from the young man's mouth. He broke away and strode off up the stairs to the station's main concourse. At the top — and he should not have — he turned and looked down. He saw the confusion and, almost, pleading in the young man's face, as if he had expected bonding within a brotherhood but was abandoned; he saw the swan on the young man's chest, between the flaps of his leather jacket — was that jacket big enough to hide a belt or a vest? It was a good jacket — and he thought of the birds that had been stoned on their nests in the Derwent river. He lengthened his step.
In that step there was lightness. He could boast of his determination to be a martyr for God, and know he was not chosen. He was in the rain, leaving the station, and his follower would be tracking behind him.
'It is what I saw.'
'But what you say you saw is impossible.'
'I saw it, I promise that to you.'
'A person cannot be in two places at the same time,' Omar Hussein said, and chuckled. 'You are wrong. He is in Sana'a.'
'I saw your son, my nephew, at the King Khalid airport in Riyadh. Omar, I have known him all of his life.'
'Did you see his face?'
'I saw his back, but I have seen him walk — from the front and the side and the back — all of his life and mine.'
'Our country has a population in excess of eight millions. Do you not consider, my brother, that one other boy can walk like Ibrahim, if seen only from the back? He is in Sana'a to see cousins, from his mother's family, and in a week he returns to go back to the School of Medicine. Is that not good enough for you?'