She started talking nervously. ‘Yes. A boy from my village, you see… I do my best, but you never know if the rules have changed and if someone is going to say something.’ She took a handkerchief and dabbed her brow. She waved Tibbot away when he tried to put his hand on her arm. I heard the man’s voice again, muffled by the door between us, but closer. ‘And what then? What then?’
The door opened, but it was a girl, aged about eighteen, with her hair in the short style the Party encouraged. She sat down and no one said anything else. We just waited. The waiting went on for five, then ten minutes. Another door slammed and ours opened.
‘Identity cards.’ He was aged about forty – a little older than they usually were. NatSec preferred young men and women because they were more eager to shape the new world. It was the Secs’ belief that made them so frightening. I don’t think I could ever have believed anything as strongly as they did.
I saw Tibbot look past the Sec, to the train door leading on to the platform. He was sizing the man up, then glancing at me. I could tell he was coming to the conclusion that it wasn’t worth any rough stuff – he could probably handle himself, but not with me to look after too. The old woman and the girl who had sat down offered up their cards. They were taken, held up to the light, bent back and forth to test them and handed back without comment. Tibbot drew out his warrant card.
‘All right?’ he asked as he showed it. The Sec tried to take it from his grip. ‘No need for anything, is there?’
‘There is if I say there is.’ His expression was challenging. He took the card from Tibbot and looked at it, then at him. ‘This way,’ he muttered. ‘And you too.’ I looked to Tibbot; he nodded. We did as we were told.
Stepping down on to a sullen-looking platform, we found it empty apart from the other Sec, a younger man, my age and athletic-looking. ‘Now come on, mate,’ Tibbot chuckled. ‘What’s this all about, eh?’ A solitary light shone over a station sign that had been so broken and weather-beaten it was illegible. I guessed that we must have been close to Blackheath, the Closed Village where the Politburo lived with their NatSec minders.
‘In there,’ the senior man replied, pointing to the waiting room. The doorway was empty, with rusted hinges sticking uselessly out of the brickwork. Behind us, the train began to move off, the wheels whining as they strained to spin, and we watched the blank face of the old woman in the carriage disappear. ‘I said in there.’
‘All right, come on, a bit of professional comradeship,’ Tibbot said, still trying to be pally.
‘You’re not my comrade.’ Inside it was dark, with the smell of vagrants and what they had used it for. I started as I felt the younger man’s hand on my back. ‘Sit down.’
‘I can stand,’ I said.
‘Sit down.’
‘Just do it,’ Tibbot muttered.
‘Where have you been today?’
‘Kent,’ Tibbot replied, leaving behind the attempt at a friendly tone.
‘Sergeant, you want to fuck about, you’ll regret it.’ I knew as well as Tibbot that he was probably right.
Tibbot lowered himself on to a backless bench in the middle of the room. He made the Sec wait before he answered. ‘I was investigating a crime.’
‘What crime?’
‘Car theft,’ Tibbot told him.
‘Car theft.’
‘That’s right.’
The Sec pointed to me, then to another bench in the corner, behind Tibbot. His younger colleague took me by the arm and led me over. The older one resumed his questions. ‘And just who reported this theft?’
‘Sorry, that’s between me and them.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘Police business. Not yours.’
‘Like I said, Sergeant, you fuck me about, you regret it.’
The younger Sec sat beside me. He had a small, pebble-like goitre bulging from the left side of his neck. He leaned in close to me. ‘Your house,’ he said quietly. ‘Must be nice living somewhere big like that.’ I stared dead ahead.
‘Listen,’ Tibbot said to the other man. ‘You’re pushing it and we both know that. Now, I know what you and your mates get up to in the basement of your HQ, but, unless you’ve brought a couple of rubber truncheons with you tonight, I’m going to cross my arms and sit here nice and polite while you piss off.’ The Sec glanced at me. ‘And you had better drop that idea and all, son.’
‘Are you fucking threatening me?’
‘Sounds like it, don’t it?’
‘You’re a long way from home, Sergeant,’ the older Sec told Tibbot, thrusting his face so close they almost touched.
‘So are you,’ Tibbot replied darkly. I was worried how this would end.
‘You want to try, old man?’
‘Been through as much as you.’
‘You haven’t a fucking clue.’ I saw the saliva fly from his mouth.
Tibbot sat back, appraising him. ‘What regiment?’ he asked.
‘One-four-two Commando.’
‘Chindits?’ The Sec nodded. Tibbot paused. ‘And look at you now. Wingate wouldn’t spit on a cunt like you.’
The Sec made eye contact with his colleague, who leaped up, grabbed the collar of Tibbot’s jacket and pulled it down as far as his elbows, trapping his arms. The older man kicked Tibbot in the chest, toppling him backwards. He fell against my legs – if he hadn’t, he would have cracked his head on the concrete floor. I bent down to help but the younger man dragged me back and I sat up again, my legs shaking.
‘Fucking stay down!’ the older man shouted at Tibbot.
Someone appeared at the door: a couple of kids aged thirteen or fourteen apparently attracted by the noise. They stopped at what they saw. ‘Piss off,’ the older Sec barked at them. They took his order and hurried away.
Tibbot was pushing himself on to his side.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked, afraid to help him up.
‘Yeah.’ But he wasn’t breathing well and I hoped he was only winded.
The senior Sec took a notebook from his hip pocket, turned his back on us and marched over to a bashed-about call box in the corner of the room. He flipped through his book until he found what he was looking for, called a number and mumbled into the telephone. Tibbot pulled his jacket off and threw it angrily to the side. We all waited, freezing in the dank room as the Sec made his call.
A train, an express hooting its speed, came through in the opposite direction to ours. Distant road traffic provided a distorted chaos of noise. We waited, still. After a minute, the older man came back. ‘The car is not stolen. There hasn’t been any crime. It doesn’t concern you any more, so you can go back to nicking pickpockets or whatever you normally do. Your inspector has been informed. I doubt he’s over the moon.’ Another train was pulling in on its way to London. ‘You’re getting on that one.’
‘Are we?’ Tibbot spat. I could hear the ice in his words.
‘Yes. You are.’
Tibbot raised his head. He waited a moment before speaking. ‘I’ve been in this game longer than you have, son,’ he said. ‘You learn some things.’ He stood up stiffly, plucked his dirt-streaked jacket from the ground and walked towards the train.
As the train pulled into Blackfriars, I was reminded of the moment I had met Nick on the platform at Waterloo Station. Even after what had happened, the memory could still make me smile. But I had to come to terms with the fact that he wasn’t coming back to me – what Rachel had said left little room for doubt – and if I ever saw him alive again it would be in a military court, where I would be giving evidence against him. I wouldn’t have any choice about that. I would look at him across the room and it would split my heart, but if they ordered me to declare that I had witnessed him passing messages to American spies or that he had tried to recruit me to the cause, I would. He wouldn’t blame me; he would understand.