The knowledge of Xavier Boniface and Donald Clydesdale concerned the thresholds of pain, carefully regulated as an arm of interrogation. The inflicting of pain, enough to make a prisoner spit out truths but not enough to win a babble of lies, was the prized expertise of these two elderly men and it came from their distant past, when they had first worked with Mr Naylor. They drank tea and made toast, the sunlight lit their room, and they gloried in what they had achieved that morning. They were usually called to action, where the thresholds they knew of were involved, when a target made a mistake, then paid for it in pain.
The handler, with seventeen years' experience behind him, knew well enough the value of luck, but it came sparsely.
He worked with spaniels that were trained to sniff and find, then to address the target, sitting on their haunches and barking, till he came to investigate. His last dog had been a drugs sniffer, and life had been exciting and busy. That little treasure had had a score of convictions to her name, and a dozen commendations for finding heroin, cocaine and amphetamines.. But Smack had been retired now for three years: she lived at home, with a basket in the kitchen, and was the ageing playmate of his children.
The new dog was Midge, a pedigree bred from Welsh stock; as a working dog she had a kennel and pen out at the back. She was faster to boredom but had energy and intelligence. Boredom afflicted her because she was explosives-trained, and explosives were rare in the East Midlands. With her handler she did preparatory search work whenever royalty or a prominent politician was visiting the county, and was called out when a resident reported a 'suspicious' object at the railway or bus station; she had never found a 'live' cache of dynamite — not even a hidden sack of Second World War ammunition underneath an allotment shed. Razor sharp on exercises, Midge seemed to her handler to recognize that the 'real thing' had eluded her.
Another day done. They had been out on loan to the airport at Castle Donington, where he'd taken her through Baggage Reclaim and let her scramble over the trolleys before the bags and cases went on to the carousel — showing the flag, really. After that, he'd had her alongside the check-in queues and she'd sniffed at the bags and cases stacked with holidaywear. The handler and his dog were as much a part of the reassurance-to-the-public policy as the officers who patrolled with machine pistols hooked on to their chests. But his duty day was completed…Every late afternoon, when they were finished, he'd leave the van in the driveway, shed his uniform, and walk the spaniel up on to Rose Hill, on the edge of the Normanton district of the cathedral city of Derby, and let her run free. There, kids played with her and she was everybody's friend.
It did not matter to the handler whether it rained, sleeted, or if the sun baked him. He would be on Rose Hill at the finish of his shift — and tomorrow, because he had a nine o'clock start, before his shift began — and Midge would be charging and careering among the other walkers, the mums with their prams and the vagrants on the benches. Twice, Smack had identified kids with heroin wraps on Rose Hill, and that was luck, and the handler had made arrests. Never, of course, had Midge identified an ounce, not even five grams' worth of military or commercial explosive in the park, but the little beggar wasn't one to stop trying: she sniffed at everything and everyone — just never had the opportunity to bark raucously and have a 'real thing' moment.
He whistled; she came.
He gave her a reward, a half-biscuit, tousled the hair on her collar, fastened the leash and started out for home.
'I spoke, Dickie, of the kid who's been brought in to do the business. I'd like to focus on him and—'
'I don't want to seem rude, Joe, but the assistant director's waiting upstairs for me — I hope Mary's looking after you.'
'She's doing a fine job. Another day of this and I'll be fatter than a Thanksgiving turkey. Keep your man on hold a couple minutes. Imagine the kid. A Saudi Arabian boy, from the limited background of an upbringing in Asir Province, is in circumstances way out of his depth. He's far from home and has only his Faith to cling to. Where he is, in the safe-house, he has no friend. He is alone. I could almost feel sorry for him, Dickie — except that it was a kid like him who walked into the mess hall at Mosul. Those with him, except for the big man, are of an alien culture. They're not Arabs but Muslim Brits. They won't know how to talk to him, won't understand his feelings, and cannot offer him succour. His isolation is total. Some of those British will be jealous of him because he's going to be martyred and have that quarter of an hour of fame. Others' fear of death, eternity will have been heightened by his presence, proximity. Strains and stresses will create an atmosphere you could cut with a blunt-edged knife…and around them, bickering and complaining and wishing he was someplace else, is the big man. You following me? OK, so you have to go. Enjoy your meeting, Dickie.'
The trial lurched on.
After the lunch adjournment, the prosecution's barrister had started on his closing address to the jury; Mr Justice Herbert made a play at normality and busily wrote his longhand notes; the Curtis brothers glowered from the dock and the security round them had been reinforced by the presence of two more prison officers; the solicitor, Nathaniel Wilson, kept his head down as if that way he would not be noticed; the police guard in the public gallery had been doubled. The normality the judge had aimed for could not be achieved.
Some of the jury seemed to listen to the barrister's droning repetition of the evidence laid before them; others scarcely made the effort.
But in the morning when the jury had gathered in their room, and again during the adjournment, there had been lively anger, confusion, and an almost excited meld of gossip and anecdote between them. Confidentiality was gone, and something of a brotherhood in adversity had been shaped. They all — bar one — had difficulties with the new situation confronting them.
Rob, a mouthpiece for the general anger, had said, 'No one seems to have given us a thought. My darts team's on the board tonight, and I'm the fixture secretary. I'm expected to turn out — but I'm told I can't. Where am I going to be? Nobody's told me.'
While the bickering complaints had played in his ears, Jools Wright had said nothing. Could have. Could have spoken of the dour detective who had driven him home, who had introduced himself curtly to Babs and nodded with bare politeness to Kathy, who had checked all the windows and door locks, paced round the back garden, then drawn a plan of his home, who had asked for each of the family's blood groups, then been on the phone for an age with a map on his knee. There had been a red pen circle round the nearest Accident and Emergency hospital…Who had called him sir and his wife ma'am, — who had said he was either Mr Banks or Detective Constable Banks. Could have told them all that the- detective had bridled sharply when referred to as a 'bodyguard': 'That's what film stars have. I am a Protection Officer. You are not some minor celebrity, you are a Principal — and in case you have the wrong idea about all this, you have been assigned this level of security after a threat assessment recognized the danger you and your family now face. We are not friends, don't forget that. A final thing, we use a jargon phrase, "dislocated expectations". It means we can plan for what we think will happen but when the opposite turns up we have to be prepared for that. So, to cover it, I require you all to obey my instructions immediately I give them. I will not entertain discussion.' Could have said that a holdall bag had been brought into the hail and unzipped. The stubby shape of a machine-gun with a magazine attached was displayed, and a big fire extinguisher — like those in his school's corridors — was laid beside the holdall. Could have said that an hour of discussion, ignoring Jools, had centred on where Mrs Wright and her daughter would stay after they abandoned their home, and that this, too, was telephoned through to his control. Could have said that after he had gone upstairs to the spare room, he had not slept and had heard the regular checks made by the detective of the ground-floor windows, and low-pitched conversations with the police-car people outside. He'd come down for a coffee after three: the detective had been reading from a weathered old notebook and had not acknowledged him. Could have said that Mr Banks had been yawning and taciturn as he had driven Jools to Snaresbrook through the rush-hour traffic, and his eyes had spent more time snapping up at the mirror than on the roads ahead.