In his exhaustion, Vahid Hossein did not recognize the danger to him of rambling and incoherent thought. He was weakened and hurt, and he did not know it. He dragged himself across the mud of the shore-line, through the last of the reed-stems. He was still and gasped for breath.
"Goodbye, friend, look for me, search, do not forget me."
A sparrow flew away, cheeping, as he scrambled the few yards for the cover of the trees and undergrowth on Fenn Hill to meet Farida Yasmin. They would shout his name, in the streets, when he was home. He did not feel the exhaustion. He had the love of the bird and believed himself supreme.
The great anchor chain rose from the sea. The power of the huge engines edged the tanker away from the mooring buoys. Its cargo gone, the deck of the tanker and the bridge were high above the water.
It would be a long climb… They would have sailed two hours before but for the late arrival back on board of seven of his crew. They had claimed they were lost ashore, and the master had believed they smelt of women's bodies. They always went with whores when allowed ashore, and they were all good Muslims, and they brought back on board foul magazines that would be thrown into the sea when the tanker, days later, reached the Straits of Hormuz and the last leg for home. They would make full speed, twenty-four knots, and be near to the port of Rotterdam in the late evening where they would collect the pilot before sailing into the separation zone. They would reach the waters off Dungeness in the hour before dawn the next morning. It was still possible for his instructions to be changed and for him to pick up the man under the cover of darkness, lift him off the beach.
But it would be a long climb for the man, if his orders were changed, on a bucking rope-ladder, from the sea to the deck and safety.
Farida Yasmin sat on the bench and watched the muted life of the village pass her by. She could see the green and the far end of the house. Today, the police cars cruised more frequently on the one road. She had been through the village twice, gone to the sea twice and up to the church. She hated those times, when she was away from the bench, when she could no longer see the end of the house, but she thought it important to break any pattern she set. She should not spend too long on the bench. A woman with a brightly coloured coat had come and sat with her and had talked about the village. She seemed lonely and bored, soFar ida Yasmin had smiled sweetly and fed the questions that had kept the woman talking. The woman had been with her for an hour. It was a valuable hour. In the police cars, going slowly by, the men would have seen her listening earnestly, and would have thought she belonged. While the woman had talked, looking at her with interest, smiling, laughing with her, Farida Yasmin had been able to see the end of the house over the stupid bitch's shoulder. She glanced, too often, at her watch. Time was passing. She sat on the bench and she thought of the smooth skin of his body, the discolouration of the bruising, and she held her fingers against her lips because the fingers had touched his skin and hair and the bruising… But she had nothing to tell him that would help him.
"Excuse me, miss."
Under his cap, he had a dull, pudgy, middle-aged face. Below his face was the top of the bullet-proof vest against which he held his machine-gun.
"Hello." She made her voice calm, pleasant.
The car was parked behind her, and the driver watched them. It was bright daylight and she had no weapon; he was protected and armed.
"Can I ask what you're doing, miss?"
She grinned. Imperceptibly, she opened her legs, and she straightened her back to emphasize the fall of her chest.
"What you wish you could be doing, officer, letting the rest of the world take the strain."
"You've been here a long time, miss, doing nothing."
"My good luck, to have the time to do nothing."
A small rueful smile slipped his face. He'd have seen the shape of her thighs and the outline of her breasts, as she'd intended.
"So what are you doing here?"
She still grinned, but her mind raced at flywheel speed. It was the moment at which she was tested. It came to her very fast, and she clung to it. She had no time to consider what she said. She must follow her instind. There might be an old photograph of her, but she believed she looked sufficiently different.
"I'm at Nottingham University we're doing a study on rural problems. I chose here. Didn't I do well?"
"You don't seem, if I might say so, to have done much studying."
"Watch me tomorrow, if you're still here, officer. You won't see me for dust."
"What's your name, miss?"
"I'm Carol Rogers. Geography at Nottingham."
"Do you have identification, Miss Rogers?"
"I don't, actually. I left everything like that where I'm staying, in Halesworth does it matter?"
She'd given the name of a popular girl, a right bitch, at the university. The policeman could take her to the car and sit her in the back, and radio through the details and wait for confirmation of her identity. If Carol Rogers was still at the university, going after a masters, and was called from the library, then Farida Yasmin had failed. If she failed, when the light shone into her face and the questions hammered her, she might break as Yusuf had broken. Her hand touched her breast. She thought it was just routine, that he was doing his job and was undecided.
"Don't you have anything driving licence, cash card?"
The voice boomed from the car.
"Come on, Duggie, for Christ's sake…"
He turned away and walked back to the car. When they drove past, he looked at her hard. She bit her lip. She wouldn't tell him that she had been questioned. She thought of her future, when he had gone; anxiety about the future had gnawed increasingly at her through the day. She would be hunted, and looking over her shoulder, always waiting for a policeman to ask her for identificahon. But she could not leave the village, not while she had nothing to tell him that would help him. And then the pride flushed in her because she had come through the first test of her skill.
Davies ended the call and he finished scribbling notes on his pad. They were waiting on him. The principal had his arm around his wife's shoulder.
Davies said, "Two officers in uniform went round to see them. Maybe they hit the door a bit hard, but it took Blackmore five minutes to get her to come out of the kitchen and talk to them. They got it out of her eventually, who she was and what had happened to her. It's not a pretty story. Control ran it through the computer. They're what they say they are… I don't know whether it's the right place for you or the wrong place. We couldn't have you visit there, Frank nor you, Meryl, come back here. You'd be a mile apart, but it might as well be a hundred. It's your decision, both of you. You'd stay there, Meryl, until the conclusion. I think we're close to that, hours from it, but I don't know, and I don't know what's afterwards. I can't tell you how long is "afterwards"…"
Perry said, "Listen, afterwards I'll go in my own time. Of course I'll go. But it's not them, the people here, who decide when."
Davies said quietly, "They check out. He was British Council in Santiago, capital city of Chile. First posting abroad for Simon Blackmore. He would have been running a library at the embassy, bringing out the odd slice of Shakespeare, chucking British culture around, and finding a girlfriend. It was late in 1972. The girlfriend was Luisa Himenez, and she wasn't suitable for a young fellow from the British Council not at all, left-wing political, the ambassador wouldn't have liked that, one little bit. In 1973 there was a military coup that deposed and killed the neo-Communist president, Salvador Allende, then a round-up of sympathizers. She went into the net, she'd have been screened first in that concentration camp they set up in the football stadium, then faced the heavy stuff. The interrogators probably we trained them, we usually did gave her a hard time. A "hard time" is an understatement. Blackmore would have badgered his ambassador for action, and that would have been a waste of his time, and then he went direct to Amnesty International. By his efforts, she was adopted as a prisoner-of-conscience. There are very few who get to that status, and sometimes it can make a small difference. The military were bombarded with letters, it meant hassle for them. For her, it reduced the chance of the old one-liner, "died of medical complications". Without Simon Blackmore's efforts she would have disappeared into an unmarked grave. She was quietly released four years later when the government was whipping up interest in a trade fair. Before she received prisoner-of-conscience status, the interrogators had tortured her no fingernails, did you notice? Did you see her walk away, limping? They broke the ligaments in her right knee, and surgery wasn't on offer. There are slashes at her wrists, attempted suicide when she thought she was going to break. Oh, what we didn't see, she's got burns on her breasts, which they used as an ashtray… The Blackmores have experienced persecution and isolation, which is why they're offering a hand of friendship, and they can't be frightened any more. Their understanding of living and suffering is different from what you've found here. But, Meryl, I can't tell you what to do, go to them or go to a hotel. They might be right for you, they might be wrong. It's your decision."