His nostrils picked up the recycled, regurgitated airflow of the block. The same air, damp and stale, circulated in these buildings everywhere Hegner had been. And there was always a television screen cabled through to a ceiling camera in the room where the jerk was. He heard the low voice, the question, but there was silence for an answer. He swung his stick in front of him, hit a table leg and moved forward skirting it, swung the stick again and heard a yelp of pain, then, 'Hey, steady with that thing, if you don't mind.' Hegner went to a speaker, stood under it. He reached out with his hand, touched the covering material, then eased his ear against it.
A second voice, irritated, 'Excuse me, but you're half in my lap.'
He heard again the question, then the silence. He said, 'Mary, get me a chair here.'
There was a snort of annoyance. He didn't care. The chair was brought and he settled on it, but his ear stayed against the speaker. He heard the crackle of the connection, the rustle of papers, the clink of a bottle's neck on a glass and the silence…and he knew what he would say but was not ready to say it. He heard Mary's breathing near to him, and Naylor's cough.
'Do you want a coffee, Joe?' Mary asked.
He gazed into the blackness, and strained to hear better from the speaker. Hegner said, 'A coffee'll make me need a leak. What I want is you to describe him to me. I want to know him.'
He sensed around him the resentment his presence created, and it did not concern him. Little sounds, not from the speaker, told him of the three men and one woman in the room, and they would have thought themselves the experts, and he was the intruder. As an intruder, he was familiar with resentment. Sometimes he used folksy charm to dismantle it and sometimes he didn't bother, as now. If it had been his territory that was invaded he would have bawled them out, slammed the goddamn door on them.
She said briskly, 'It's a monochrome screen and the lighting's poor. He's in a paper jumpsuit. He's Asian, maybe middle twenties…
He's a big man, powerful, heavily muscled, but his shoulders are down. The tongue's out, flicks his lips. He's frightened.'
Not frightened bad enough, like he would have been — Hegner thought — in the Mabatha interrogation centre or at Baghdad's airport, or if the cold, bad guys of the Bureau had him in a 'black site' military camp.
The question came over the speaker, conversationaclass="underline" 'It's confirmed, Ramzi, that there are traces of explosives on your hands, and I'm giving you the opportunity to explain them. How did they get there?' No reply.
'What's his eyeline?'
'Seems, Joe, that he's looking at the ceiling, not at the officer across the table. On the ceiling and staying there.'
The patient rephrasing of the question: 'Look, Ramzi, there may be a perfectly innocent explanation for these traces on your hands; and I'm giving you the chance to tell me how they came to be there.' He listened to the silence.
Mary said, 'The eyeline has changed. It's gone to the wall, the bottom of it, to his left. He's sweating, hands clenched and fingers locked. I'd say frightened but fighting.'
No exasperation, no bluster and hurry: 'It would, of course, be best for you, Ramzi, to be utterly truthful with us. You've been in a cell with comrades, but you're now alone. Help us, and you help yourself. You realize, — don't you, the advantages of cooperation?' The silence echoed in his ear.
Mary said, 'I wouldn't swear to it, but I think he is, if anything, more comfortable now than when we came in. Still frightened, but it's like he believes he can survive…The eyeline is still on the wall by the floor. He doesn't risk contact.'
Nor would he. Didn't have to. Hegner asked if anything had been said by the prisoner. 'Nothing,' was the laconic voice's response, 'not a single word.' What had he said in the car coming south to London? Hadn't opened his mouth. They had a name — had they now an address? Officers were still at the house, with his mother and his two sisters; his room was clean, bare, and his lap-top computer had the hard drive removed. There were no posters of Islamic jihadists and no books and no pamphlets in his room that were relevant, and all that had been learned was that the man had been absent from home — on an IT course, his mother said, but had not known where — for thirteen days.
He did the arithmetic in his mind. Ibrahim Hussein, wearing the T-shirt of The Threatened Swan had gone through King Khalid airport, had flown out of Riyadh, seven days before. Ibrahim Hussein, still in that damn shirt, had come off the Eurostar five days before. Hegner leaned back, groped, found Mary's arm. 'That boy was met at that train station.'
'But we didn't have a face for the greeter, only the boy.'
'Describe the build of the greeter.'
He heard the snap of the lock on her shoulder-bag. He had already decided on the body shape. He sought only to confirm his status. She was rifling among papers. Another question was put, was met by the same silence.
Mary said, 'Big, heavy and filling an anorak, over six feet in height, and two thirty — could be two forty — pounds was the estimate.'
Hegner stood; in doing so he kneed the groin of the officer beside him, did not apologize. He swung his stick ahead of him, hit the leg of another officer and the table's. 'I find the air kind of suffocating in here,' he said.
He shook Mary's hand off his arm. From the door he called, 'Thank you for your welcome,' and he murmured, too softly to be heard, 'Keep going the way you are and you might break him by Christmas.'
He set off down the corridor at pace, and Mary Reakes was skipping to keep up with him. He remembered exactly each step he had taken into the building, and the route to get clear of it. Hegner stopped, stood in the yard, and the rain lashed him. He said, 'They're going nowhere, and fast. That was a joke.'
He heard Naylor: 'Quite predictable, they never talk — all of them have had the training on resistance to interrogation.'
'That was no interrogation, that was like a PTA conversation.'
He heard Mary Reakes: 'In the gathering of evidence to go before a court it is not permitted to suggest that cooperation will be rewarded with a reduced sentence. It would be what we call "offering an inducement". It's not admissible — would most likely lead to acquittal.'
'Mary, you're a great lay but this is old men's work and you'd do well to go sit in your tower, dream moralities and stay clean.' There was a gasp, a choke, then a clatter of her heels, and he heard their car door open, then slam.
Naylor said, hoarse, 'Spit it, Joe, get it out.'
'Do you want to crack this guy or not? Do you want to listen for the bang, then scrape up the bits on the pavement and up the buildings' walls to stay clean? Who's going to go the extra mile? Where I work, we do that mile, get the mud on our boots, then they talk. You got hang-ups, Dickie? Are you in the lady's camp, waiting for the explosion? Think I got you wrong, Dickie. Maybe you're a man to go slack on me. Do you have people who'll do the business, do what's necessary?'
'I'm not her cheer-leader but what you said to her was out of order. She's in the car now, sobbing. Please, make your peace…Yes, I do have such men and I've put them on stand-by.'
'Get them here — talking is wasting time. Trust me, Dickie, you ain't got time.'
Hegner went to the car.
Naylor stood in the centre of the yard, the rain coursing down his face. He dialled.
He thought it was about duty. About, of course, the carrying-out of a verbal instruction — no minutes taken, nothing on paper…no. He covered himself in those two frail cloaks. It was the right thing to do, and it was an order given him.