She closed the door after her.
They were walking along the pavement towards him, towards the boarded-up toilets and the shadows thrown by the hedge where Lee Donkin waited.
Tremors shook his arms and legs, and he bit down hard on his tongue, his lower lip.
There was heavy traffic going both ways on the road, but still moving. Not another pedestrian within a hundred yards of them, behind them. He checked the sports field: kids booted a ball towards goal-posts that had no net but there were no adults with them. Lee Donkin thought his patience rewarded. His escape run was clear.
The man wore a heavy leather jacket, his body bulging under it, and his hands were in the pockets. The expression on his face was vacant, as if he was distracted, but he had a slight smile on his face. The woman alongside him was dressed in the black robe — what Lee Donkin called 'binbag gear'—had a scarf across her face, and a bag hooked up on her shoulder. They were not talking. They didn't look right or left, just walked. He would have said, Lee Donkin would have, that they saw nothing…would not see him until he hit them. He readied himself, which made the shaking worse, tensed and flexed.
They came level with the hedge.
Lee Donkin was out fast from the shadow, was on them before he was seen. He hit the woman with his shoulder, heard her gasp, saw the shock. She reeled away, nearly fell into the road as a lorry went by. He had his hand on the strap of the bag and tried to drag it clear of her, but she clung on. A kick slashed at the muscle on the back of his shin. His hand went into his pocket, clasped the knife handle — should have had it out at the start. The man grappled him. The woman held on to her bag and used her free hand to pound him. He was vicious but not strong. Was bloody losing…Wouldn't have realized it, but the addiction had sapped him. He had a grip on the leather jacket and tried to pull it closer to him to make the stab thrust shorter. Tugged and ripped at the jacket and was poised to strike with the knife. Lee Donkin felt his arm twisted back — like it would break, and loosed the knife, lost it. Heard the knife fall…He broke free and fled.
Lee Donkin ran, slipping, sliding, across the mud of the sports field. Past the kids and their bloody ball. Didn't look back, didn't know what he had done. Ran until he dropped, couldn't breathe, then slumped.
She bent, picked up the knife. Crouching, she dropped it into her bag — couldn't have said why.
'You all right, Miss?'
She looked up, saw the driver high in the lorry's cab. She nodded, and stood. Ibrahim was beside her, and seemed detached from it, far away, still smiling, one hand in a pocket.
The lorry pulled away.
They went on together, walking down the hill towards the town.
It was a busy road, no different on a Saturday morning from any other day and it led to a chosen battlefield of the new war…There were no defiles and crag peaks, as in the mountains outside Jalalabad, no high-walled compounds that could be defended, as in the remote villages of Waziristan, no culvert drains into which improvised explosive devices were packed, as under the route from the Green Zone to Baghdad International Airport.
The new war had found a fresh fighting ground where people gathered in a square, and did not concern themselves that they paid the wages of soldiers and airmen, paid for the bullets, shells and bombs that were used in their name, did not think of the consequences, and considered themselves far removed. The news on the radio that morning, if anybody had listened, reported a new operation by American troops in difficult mountain country, a raid by Pakistani military against an Al Qaeda leadership target, a bomb in Baghdad that had killed three South African security guards but it was all a long, long way away.
He heard the breakfast cooking, heard the whistled anthem through the bedroom door, waited to go with his Principal to buy a newspaper and a packet of cigarettes.
David Banks opened the notebook, turned to the last page.
2 August 1938
To: Miss Enid Darke, Bermondsey, London
From: Nurse Angelina Calvi, 38th Field Hospital, Ebro River Front
I regret to report to you the death of Cecil Darke, volunteer of the XV International Brigade.
He passed from us three hours ago. He had been hit by a single high-velocity bullet in the upper chest, which caused a Pneumo Thorax condition, the collapse of the right lung. Inevitably there was also internal bleeding into that lung, which had deflated. The original wound was bandaged on the instructions of the doctor i/c, and a trocar was inserted into the lung, a procedure that allows excess blood to be drained. Regrettably, in the conditions of the field hospital — there were many casualties admitted at that time — he was subject to infection. Bacteria would have been introduced through the nasal air passage, and from his uniform particles carried into the wound by the bullet. His temperature rose to 101 deg. F, and his pulse rate and respiratory rate had also risen. To alleviate pain, morphine was injected. At the time of death he was unconscious.
With comrades, he was buried one hour ago. The grave will not have been marked. We withdraw tonight, and tomorrow the Fascists will hold this place; they would destroy, defile, any grave they identified.
I talked to him this morning, before he went to unconsciousness. He was calm, able to speak in a whisper. You should know that, at the end, he had courage and was dedicated to the cause he had joined. He told me that he wished, when he was buried, that the words of Psalm Number 137 should be spoken over his grave: it is not permitted that Christian prayers be said, the commissars forbid it. He had this diary in his hand when he passed. We have an amputee who is being repatriated and he will take the diary to London.
I think he was a man for whom you should feel pride.
Sincerely, Angelina Calvi.
'You ready, Mr Banks? God, you look like you've seen a ghost.'
Low on the settee, his body hid the movement as he closed the notebook, slid it back into his pocket and let it fall on the loose coins and the two pebbles. He said curtly, 'Yes, I'm ready and have been for half an hour.'
'No need to be scratchy.' His Principal grinned. 'Looks like rather a nice day out there.'
She called from the kitchen that they should get a move on or the sausages would be charcoal. He touched the Glock in the holster on his hip, shrugged into his coat and followed Wright out.
Banks walked a pace behind his Principal, and a stride to his Principal's left, held the outer section of pavement. He wondered if an Italian nurse, sixty-nine years, less a few weeks, before, had written the truth of a man's death. Banks raked his eyes over the road ahead and the cars approaching, the people on the pavement, as his training had taught him. He wondered if a man with a hole in his chest and his lung collapsed still felt courageous. Banks saw the ordinariness around him, and sensed no danger.
He thought of betrayal. It would be a big day for betrayal. His, because he had been dumped by the team he should have been with.
Cecil Darke's, because he had been fooled by the cause he'd followed. Julian Wright's, because of what would be said to him after the burned sausages had been served. He thought betrayal made a bad start to a day — to any day.
'Are you always so damn miserable, Mr Banks?'
Ignored him, walked a pace behind and a stride to the side. Saw the cars, saw the faces, saw the square opening out in front of him. Saw the crowds in the far distance.
'All right, what's the story? What's going to happen to me?'
Banks said quietly, as if it was a conversation piece, 'The trial ends and you go into protective custody. You make a statement, which has not yet been done for fear of prejudicing the case you're hearing. If you're lucky you won't be called as a witness in subsequent proceedings because there's a stack of first-hand evidence of arson. You are then let go. You go, if you have an ounce of sense, about as far as is possible. Change your name, change your identity. You forget everything of your past — including your wife and your daughter because they make for the weak link. Only thing you remember is to look over your shoulder, keep looking. Never stop looking into shadows, into darkness, into the faces of strangers. Never think, for what you did, that you're forgotten. How's that, Mr Wright, for a reason to be cheerful?'