Foxy slept now. Badger lay beside him and the other man’s light snoring was soothing, little more than the wind on the reeds. If he grunted he made less noise than when the birds splashed. Best to think about anything else… About the scabs on his hip, the back of his thigh and his stomach, under which the wounds oozed and might be infected. About the long and earnest-seeming talk between the Engineer and the goon, which had been too far away to be picked up. A little had: ‘And when we are gone tomorrow, Mansoor, what will you do?’ Gone where? Not said. Foxy had typed it onto the small screen he carried, his notebook, and pushed it towards Badger for him to read. And under it was written, ‘Look for a Sacred Ibis [whoever that is, whatever].’ The suitcase had been packed in the front bedroom and a lamp had been on beside the big bed. Badger could see the children asleep in it. The gear was good, but it wasn’t magic and they had no Merlin. The parents had kept their voices down so as not to wake their children. Nothing went onto the screen of Foxy’s notebook. Twice Badger was passed the headset and was able to listen through the earpiece where he’d broken the plastic coating, but he couldn’t make out the voices. The parents whispered, murmured, and the children slept.
It was the saddest thing Badger had ever seen. Nothing in his life compared with it. The parents had packed their case and made ready to fly – somewhere – in the morning, and she was dying and the children were being left behind. They had decided – the mother and father – to have the kids in their bed with them this last night. He could look through his life, like a drowning man was supposed to, and he could not recall anything as gut-wrenching as what he saw in the lit bedroom. His mother and father, Paul and Debbie Baxter, had good health except that he’d had a hernia operation four years ago and she had pain in a knee if she walked more than a couple of miles. A grandfather had died on one side and a grandmother on the other, but they’d had good years, good lives, and it had been welcome at the end to both. No car accidents in the family, and no cancers. He had no best friend, so no one he was close to with a crisis to face, and Ged, his best oppo, was fit, and Fran, whom he’d lived with, was in good nick and her father worked out at the gym three days a week. He had been out of general uniform duties too long to remember how it was when he’d been sent, blue lights and sirens, to an RTA and found a guy’s head splattered across the windscreen, or a woman thrown off a bicycle. What was different when he had been at the roadside was that he hadn’t seen the victim before, hadn’t witnessed the man kiss his woman on the step, hug his kids and drop down into his car. He hadn’t had the ringside seat when the woman came dripping out of the shower and her man was giggling, tickling and flicking at the knot that held up the towel. He hadn’t seen them wolf breakfast or make sure that the bills were out of sight and not spoiling their precious time together. They, the bomb-maker and the bomb-maker’s woman, were the saddest couple he had ever watched.
He could see the hands of his watch. If the case was packed they were going early. When they had gone, it was over. Nothing to stay for. Failure. If they went and there was no destination, it was down the pan – and had failed. The message would be sent. He would retrieve the microphone and draw in the cable. The Bergens would be packed and he would likely carry Foxy half the fucking way to the extraction point. What would he remember of her? Maybe when she’d sat on the bed, the kiddies slept and the case was filled – or when the committee of de-miners had come to the house, sat in the shade to say farewell, and some had cried… or when she’d stood alone in the light by the pier and the dinghy, leaning on the stick and watching the birds. Perhaps she saw an otter or followed the pigs with her eyes and enjoyed the peace.
It was illegal.
Danny ‘Badger’ Banks had put up his hand, volunteered, had signed up, and it was deniable, outside the law. Not about harvesting and not about culling, and not about the blank images, unseen, between the animals in the market pens and the meat hanging from hooks in a butcher’s shop. About an illegal murder. They had talked of the bombs in the shit beside the road, and the mutilations. The major had said, The improvised explosive device is the weapon that has snatched victory from the coalition and replaced it with a very fair imitation of defeat… There is a small number of clever, innovative men capable of wrong-footing us so consistently that the body-bags keep coming home and the injured with wounds they’ll carry to their graves
… We call an enemy a Bravo. Rashid Armajan is a big bad Bravo and we should take every opportunity to locate him and… It would be murder, and those helping in the killing would be charged as accessories.
The night was quiet around him.
The lights inside the house were out, and the curtains were drawn at that bedroom window. He had not seen her undress, didn’t know with what intimacy her husband might have helped her with straps and fastenings. The man was not a jihadist who would explode himself in a carriage in an underground tunnel, and he was not a smuggler of Class-A stuff, polluting streets and youngsters and breeding addicts. He was not a break-off from a splintered Irish republican team. The man, the Engineer, did not threaten Danny ‘Badger’ Baxter, or anyone he knew.
They had talked about the town the coffins came through, the military wing of the Selly Oak hospital, of the place in Surrey where the prosthetics were fitted and mobility was taught again. It was not his agenda.
Badger reckoned he walked at others’ beck and call. Like he was a dog and a whistle blew. Foxy had told him he was deniable and an accessory, that it was illegal, and he had answered, ‘Thank you.’ What to do?
His mind churned, and his eyes hurt from exhaustion. The scabs hurt worse, and the last water bottle was dry. The mosquito bites itched and his guts were full but he couldn’t empty them. He didn’t know where to find answers.
It was the last morning. He had the headset on and waited for the first light to be switched on in the house. Then he would wake Foxy, whom he had thanked. He saw the flash of a cigarette lighter to the right and the goon came out of the barracks. There was a slight smear on the horizon, and the day started.
Chapter 12
When it had the light to see where it flew, the bird left its perch on a broken tree. Its place, a favourite for two years, was now dried out, and the mud under it had become a wizened mosaic so it could no longer wade there and hunt. It had not fed for three days, but the bird was a creature of close-governed habits and its instincts preserved its loyalty to that place. Hunger drove it to abandon its perch.
It laboured into the air, weakened by lack of food. It was up before the dawn light had spread, and before the eagles had soared high to search for prey. It worked hard to get elevation and to feel the draught of wind under its broad wings.
It went over areas of sunbaked mud, once covered with a film of water, and over what were now narrow drains and had once been deep waterways, and skirted a collection of huts that would have been in danger of annual flooding when the bird was young but now were marooned. Below it a few skinny, undernourished water buffalo meandered in search of lakes and lagoons.
The ibis flew towards water, to the east where it would find food: small fish, frogs, mice or immature rats, beetles, spiders, butterflies and moths. The bird was female. The last year, her eggs had addled. Hunger had driven her from the stick nest in the tree and she had spent too many hours away, looking for the food that would sustain her. The ground had been arid and without life, and the village where in previous years she had scavenged was now deserted. Once she had seen the carcass of her mate but she had not fluttered down to feed off it, had left the mess of bones and feathers for the crows to peck at.
She had broad wings, white with black-tipped feathers. As she flew, climbed, a rhythm returned to the flaps that took her forward. It tired her to fly any distance, but she would go as far as her strength permitted in her search. A column of smoke spiralled near to some buildings and she saw people there, swung away and did a half-circle around them: she had no love of people.