Markham unlocked the car, held the door open for him. Littelbaum felt aged, tired, cold. The tone of Markham's voice was resentful, the teeth of a saw on a buried nail.
"So, back to London. I hope it's been a worthwhile exercise for you, Mr. Littelbaum -above and beyond lunch."
"It was worthwhile. Can we have the heater on full, please? He's there, Mr. Markham. I saw where he is. It was like I could smell him."
The bird ate the minced meat, stabbing down with its beak in quick, urgent strokes.
Vahid Hossein had led her to the small clearing among the bramble and thorn, at the edge of the marsh, where the grass was short from the rabbits' feeding. Farida Yasmin did not know whether he had brought her there out of a sense of boastfulness, or whether he wished to share with her.
His fingers were long, gentle and sensitive. She was behind him, within reach of him. He had sat her down, told her not to move and whistled into the late-afternoon light. The bird had come from close by, had materialized over the dead reed fronds, with a laboured flight. Now he stroked its head feathers with his fingers, and he used her handkerchief to clean the wound. The bird permitted it. She hoped it was not a boast but the demonstration of his wish to share with her a moment so precious. His fingers moved on the feathers, soothing the bird, and pried into the wound, and she saw the peace on his face.
It was as if, that day, she had slipped from the mind-set of Farida Yasmin Jones. The identity of her Faith was discarded, as a snake's skin was shed. That day she had she knew it and it did not trouble her reverted to the world of Gladys Eva Jones.
She had stolen a car.
Any kid from her comprehensive school knew how to steal a car. It was the talk in the canteen at lunch, and in the grounds in midmorning break, and on the bus going home. She had listened in disgust, years before, as boys, girls, had talked through the theory of how to do it, and she had remembered what she had heard. She was a thief, had broken the rule of the Faith as it had been taught her, and she did not care. In the parking area beside the small railway station where the London commuters left their cars for the day, she had felt a raw excitement and it had been so easy. The hairpin into the lock of the blue Fiat 127 because all the kids always said that the small Fiat was the simplest to take and the stripping of the covering, the marrying up of the ignition wires. She was a thief; a few seconds' work with a hairpin and she was no longer the virtuous Farida Yasmin who could recite the Pillars of the Faith, pages of the Koran, and had once been the favoured pupil of Sheik Amir Muhammad. She had not felt shame, only excitement.
She watched him, watched his fingers on the bird, watched the rifle lying half out of the sausage bag on the far side of him, and the excitement was a toxin in her bloodstream. It was now a part of her. She recognized that it had nothing to do with the Islamic faith to which she had dutifully converted.
For all her teenage and adult life, Gladys Eva Jones had craved to be noticed, to be valued. He had listened thoughtfully when she'd told him that the police had been to her workplace, and had nodded his quiet appreciation when she had described the theft of the car. She sat and watched him, the bird and the gun. She knew what he planned to do that night, had even seen the man he would kill and could remember each feature of that man's face. The excitement the knowledge engendered in her was a liberation. At last, Gladys Eva Jones was a person of importance. The sensation was as fresh as morning frost to her, compared to the dull tedium of her parents' home, and the shunned, shut-out existence at the university. Her hand hovered over the hair at the back of his head. She thought of the empty boredom of Theft Section at the insurance company, and she stroked the hair on his head with the same gentleness as he caressed the feathers of the bird.
Her hand trembled, as if she sensed the danger of what she did. The bird flapped away in heavy flight, and his eyes followed it, watching its wing-beat.
Soon he would be gone with the rifle, and she would wait at the car for him to return. He needed her, and the knowledge of it gave her the confidence to slip her hand down on to the skin and bristly hair at the back of his neck… She knew the man who would be killed that night, and the house where he would be killed, and the excitement coursed in her.
There had been an older boy in her street who had a. 22 air rifle. It was fired on wasteland where a factory had been demolished. Many times she'd gone after him to the waste ground and hung back, had never qui4e had the courage to ask him if she could fire it. She'd dreamed at night about the chance to hold the rifle, aim it, and fire it. One summer evening, the boy had shot a pellet against a passing bus, and the police had come and taken it away so she'd never had the chance. But, for the lonely, unpopular girl, the rifle had stayed in her mind as the symbol of the boy's power. On the waste ground with his friends, he swaggered when he carried it. The dream from childhood was roused. One hand still stroked the hair at the back of his neck, but her other hand moved in slow stealth behind his back until her fingers touched the weapon's barrel, which protruded from his bag. She felt its clean smoothness and the tackiness of the grease, and her fingers slid on the oiled parts. She imagined it against her shoulder, and her finger against the trigger, and she touched the sharpness of the foresight, and she thought of the sight locking on to the chest of the man in the house on the green. Her hand moved faster, but more firmly, on the nape of his neck, but her fingers glided in gentleness on the cool metal of the rifle's barrel. He could see what she did, but he could not snatch the rifle away from her because that movement would frighten the bird.
She said, very quietly, "I should be with you."
"No."
"I could help you."
His free hand had moved to hers. She felt the roughness of his hand covering it. She would be with him, following him, and sharing with him. She had, in truth, no comprehension of the thudding blow of the rifle stock against a shoulder, or the ear-splitting noise of the discharge and the soaring kick of the barrel. She only understood the power that the rifle offered. The pain was in her hand. Relentlessly he squeezed her hand down on to the sharp point of the foresight, crushed it until she struggled to remove it. His eyes never left the bird. He freed her hand and she quietly sucked the blood from the small, punctured wound. She kneaded the muscles at the back of his neck.
"I go alone," Vahid Hossein said.
"Always I am alone."
"I am here to give you anything you need," Farida Yasmin whispered.
Meryl heard the impertinent, lingering blast of the bell.
She was in the kitchen, locking the legs of the ironing board, with the heap of washed and dried clothes in a basket at her feet. She started for the door to still its insistent shrillness. It surprised her that Frank had not gone to answer it. She heard the voice of Davies, the detective, speaking into his radio in the hall. Stephen was with her, at the kitchen table, methodically writing in his school exercise book. In spite of it all he was doing the weekend work that his class teacher had set. That was her next looming problem: Monday morning, and no school. Frank shouted down from upstairs that he was on the toilet. Davies was at the door, waiting for her to come, and assuring her that the camera had picked up one of the village people. She switched off the iron.
All Frank had told her was that Martindale, the bastard, would not serve him.
Davies opened the door, and she saw Vince, smelt his beer breath.
She was behind Davies.
"It's all right, Mr. Davies, it's Vince. Hello, Vince God, don't say you've come to start on the chimney."
Vince was the most fancied builder-decorator in the village. There were others, but he was the best known. He was a great starter and a poor finisher, but those with a leak or a slipped tile or the need for a sudden repainting of a spare bedroom for a visitor knew they could rely on him. And he was a popular rogue… The Revenue had looked at him twice in the last seven years, and he'd seen them off.