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He had spoken her name. She might come bouncing out from the kitchen and be wearing a ring on her finger. Might come out and manage a smile. Could recall seeing her outside the hotel. She was supposed to ‘encourage’ him, was a manipulated puppet of Knacker and the team. He had denied he would kill the officer, only ‘help’ to end his life, and she flared anger at what she’d have believed to be backsliding. He had told her that he merely did his job. She might look straight through him, might see him and spit on the floor.

She came through the doors.

An older face than he remembered. A uniform of a navy skirt and a white blouse and flat shoes for comfort. No make-up, no jewellery. She carried a tray with four plates, and beer bottles, and came towards him. A cheer rang out. Four big men, crowded over a laptop, and from the Scandinavian north Gaz reckoned, seafaring men, and a smile flickered on her face, but was transitory and was replaced with sadness. They were clapping her. She saw Gaz.

His surgical stick took his weight. He tried to straighten, find some pride, and smoothed his hair, and wished he had shaved better, and wished he had stopped at the Hauptbahnhof when coming in from the airport and gone to one of the kiosks where flowers were sold. She put the tray down. The shock was stark on her face. He went towards her, skirted clumsily between tables, banged chair legs with his stick. They were together, arms around each other, and tears wet their faces.

She said, “They told me you were lost, had gone on the sea, missing, was thought drowned. I was never told that…”

A big man came delicately past them, took the tray, chuckled, carried it to his table.

Gaz said, “We are going to find somewhere that you can have goats and dogs, where we can live and where we can be free of them. Going where rough men cannot find us, cannot find anyone. Going…”

When she had retrieved her coat and her bag, they went out on to the street and a blustery wind blew leaves and rubbish at their legs. He doubted he would tell her about a bear and a seal, and a friend who was a recluse and more friends who peddled quality skunk, and about an officer in the security apparatus of the Russian Federation who was dead, or about Knacker who was let go and was alone and thought himself worthless, tell her anything about the madness of days gone. They walked together, her hand in the crook of his arm.

The End.

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Don’t get too close to the target

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Battle Sight Zero

About the Author

Gerald Seymour spent fifteen years as an international television news reporter with ITN, covering Vietnam and the Middle East, and specialising in the subject of terrorism across the world. Seymour was on the streets of Londonderry on the afternoon of Bloody Sunday, and was a witness to the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. Gerald Seymour exploded onto the literary scene with the massive bestseller Harry’s Game, which has since been picked by the Sunday Times as one of the 100 best thrillers written since 1945. He has been a full-time writer since 1975, and six of his novels have been filmed for television in the UK and US. Beyond Recall is his thirty-sixth novel.

Imprint Page

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Hodder & Stoughton

An Hachette UK company

Copyright © Gerald Seymour 2020

The right of Gerald Seymour to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

eBook ISBN 9781529385991

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