She had called Stephen in from the hut, and he'd come reluctantly his days were now split between the television and the hut. He'd noticed that, just as he had noticed that Davies was now more comfortable in the house. He had not asked how much she intended to take because he had not dared to hear the answer. The footfall moved above him.
She would be in the gloom of their bedroom. She had left the child on his own to pack his toys.
Perry heard the thud as she pulled down the biggest of the cases from the top of the wardrobe, and then another. He stared down, doggedly, at the plans for the new filtration unit.
"Are you all right, sir?"
"Why shouldn't I be?"
"Where's she going?"
"Haven't the faintest idea."
"She has to go somewhere."
"Her mother and father died in a coach crash, and she's never spoken of any relatives. She's no friends where she came from… We only have each other. We thought it was different."
"Shall I book a hotel?"
"That would be best."
"Where should the hotel be?"
"How the hell should I know?"
Davies slipped away, left him. Perry swore. He had made a bloody mistake, had missed a bloody decimal point. He ripped up the sheet of paper on which he'd written his calculations, threw the pieces to the carpet and started again… She'd be packing the blouse he'd bought for her last birthday, and the diamond cluster ring with a central sapphire that he'd given her last Christmas, and the underwear she'd shown him when she came home from Norwich three weeks ago; everything that mattered to her, and to him, would be going into the suitcases. He corrected the positioning of the decimal point. It was the principle that mattered. He would not surrender. Why did no one understand that he had to hold on to the principle?
Davies came back in. Perry saw the smudge of lipstick on his collar, the damp patch around it, and knew the detective had comforted her.
"How much is she taking?"
"Not too much, not too little."
"How long is she going for?"
"Not for me to say, sir."
"Where is she going?"
"An hotel in London I've said I'll book it."
Davies asked him if he'd like a refill of coffee, and Perry nodded. He was wondering, when she was in a hotel in London and the detective was relieved from the duty, when a new man had come to replace him down here, whether Davies would see her, seek her out.
His fingers smacked clumsily against the keys of the calculator.
It had been her idea.
Simon Blackmore held tight to Luisa's hand.
He had had the same idea but it was she who had articulated it.
They walked through the village with purpose.
Either they did it or they left. They both knew that and did not have to speak it. If they had not started out on their walk through the village to the house on the green, both of them would have gone to the garage beside the cottage and brought out the empty packing boxes and started to fill them. They would already have rung for the van and telephoned the estate agent, and they would have gone.
Separately, when they had first seen the cottage, they'd each thought the village was a small corner of heaven, a place of perfection for them. But, as Luisa Blackmore had said, pulling on her coat before the start of their walk, a place in heaven had to be earned.
It was a fine morning. The sunshine played on the tiredness of her face, and on his, and on the brick walls of other cottages where the honeysuckle and the climbing roses were already budding. The light shimmered off the neatness of lawns cut for the first time that year. They went past the pub, not yet open, and the empty car-park, and saw the landlord grunting as he manoeuvred beer kegs from the outbuilding to the main door. The caretaker's bicycle was leaning against the wall of the hall. A young woman sat on the bench and read a book. The shop was open. The builder went by in his van, the man who had told them about their damp problem, and they had seen him the night before, and he waved to them as if nothing had happened in the darkness. They went on to the green, towards the house.
All the time they walked, on the road and on the green, Simon Blackmore held his wife's hand on which there were no fingernails. Her coat cuffs hid her wrists and the old marks of razor slashes. Under her coat, across her breast, was a thick scarf, and under the scarf and her blouse were the burn scars. He supported her. It was necessary to give her support because of the knee injury from long back.
They came to the front gate. They were watched, eyes strip-searching them, by the policemen in the car at the front. They were within the vision of the camera on the wall above the front door. Simon Blackmore squeezed hard on his wife's hand and rang the bell.
They waited. The camera's image would be watched. The policemen in the car would be reporting. He was middle-aged and frail. She limped, and her face showed harmless exhaustion. Nothing about them was threatening.
The lock turned.
The policeman wore a bullet-proof vest over his shirt and his hand hovered near to the pistol in his waist holster. Two bulging suitcases were in the hall behind him. His expression, cutting his eyes and mouth, was of contemptuous hostility.
Holding his wife's hand, looking up at the policeman, Simon Blackmore drew a deep breath. He said, "We heard him speak last night. We were in the crowd but not of it… We haven't met him, we're newcomers, so he won't know us. He said his wife would leave but that she had nowhere to go, and that she would need to find an hotel. We live at the far end of the village, near to the church, at Rose Cottage. It's only our third day here. We have come to offer the lady, and her child, a place in our home, a refuge."
Surprise clouded the policeman's face. He told them to wait there, on the step.
He came back a couple of minutes later, after a hushed conversation inside, and said they'd be visited, and he told them that the Perrys were grateful.
They walked home.
"Do you think she'll come, Simon?"
"I don't know, but, for both our sakes, I hope so.
The bird flew above him. It glided with him as if escorting him.
Vahid Hossein moved, very slowly, through the reed-banks. Sometimes the bird would wheel and fly back past him, and sometimes it would hover over him. The wing-beat seemed stronger each time it flew. In the depths of the marsh he went so carefully to be certain that he did not disturb the nesting birds. When he waded the mud clogged up to his knees and he had to use his strength to drag himself forward through the reed-stems. When he swam, the weight of the rocket launcher and the missiles on his back pushing him down, he did so with great caution. He was never in the open water. He never broke the reed-stems.
He sensed that a man watched for him.
When he rested, exhausted from the mud and the weight of the launcher in the bag on his back, he was relieved to realize that the bruised hip now caused him less difficulty. In the cold of the water there was no pain, and the restriction on his movement was less marked. He was sufficiently fit to go forward, to move against the target.
Only when he was near to the shore-line, when it circled over him, did he talk softly to the bird. He was in dense reeds and he moved them aside singly, and he passed close to geese.
"I wish you well, friend, and I regret that I did not find you at the Jasmin Canal or at the Faw marshes or at the Haur-al-Hawizeh. There were good birds there, but they were not your equal. I would have been grateful there, friend, for the comfort of your company as I am grateful here. I will remember you… Vahid Hossein did not believe it stupid or sentimental or childlike to talk to the bird.
"Will you remember me? I think so. You will not forget the man, the soldier, who cleaned your wound and fed you. I believe that when you come back next year, from wherever you go in the cold winter, you will look for me."