She followed him for three or four paces, no more, and saw him meander down the pavement…She was satisfied that he would not look back, would not search for her.
Everything that was asked of her, she had done.
She turned and started to walk away, back where she had come from. In front of the Tasty Fried Chicken and its steel shutters she did what she had forbidden to him, and stared after him. He went slowly, as if he walked asleep, and was near to a newsagent's and an alleyway with a rubbish bin, and beyond it he would cross the road, through the traffic, and join the queue at the base of the steps. She was not with him, was not close. She ran.
She ran until she was round the corner, close to the town hail — saw the clock that showed two minutes to the hour — then she snatched breath and walked.
It was done.
She slipped into a cut-through lane. She was alone. She heaved off the jilbab and dumped it with the headscarf, shook loose her hair and went out of the far end of the lane.
Faria, with a good stride, started for home. And she felt the emptiness, and the choke in her throat.
'God, look.'
'Can't, bloody traffic.'
'It's that girl.'
'What girl?'
The farmer's wife swivelled in her seat to look behind, out through the Land Rover's back window. 'The girl we had.'
'Had where?'
'You can be damned thick, dear. The girl we had in the cottage.'
'I'm not stopping or we'll be shunted.'
'Gone now anyway. You know what, she—'
'What?'
'Don't interrupt me, dear. She was crying her eyes out.'
'I haven't any idea where we'll get to park.'
'Listen, dear, she was sobbing, like her world had ended. Well, I think it was her. No, she was so composed, couldn't have been. It was like her.'
He saw the loop of the wire.
David Banks had seen the drunk veer against the couple, then smack at them with a stick, lurch into them, then collapse, and he had seen him ignored on the pavement. The couple had parted, the woman had scuttled away and the young man had walked on towards him…and the crowds heaved against the line of security men who were across the top of the steps.
Thoughts raced in the mind of Banks. It was a bright day, and sweat glistened on the skin of the young man's face, made a sheen there. There had been a smile, vacuous, where the sweat now dribbled — but not any longer. The smile had gone, was replaced by the tremble of lips, his eyes scattering glances ahead of him. His movement was slow. With each step, a loop of flex — three inches or so — bounced below the hem of the leather jacket. He saw a thin face, pinched at the cheeks, and a neck without flesh. One hand was deep in a pocket, but the other hung limply at his side. The legs, where the flex showed, were narrow and insubstantial, and the trainers were small…Yet the body was so large, as if it had been built with a weightlifter's pills, like layers of sweaters were under the jacket. The rest of the body did not match the size and bulk of the chest. And there was the loop of wire.
Banks remembered a zephyr of sneering laughter in a briefing room, the day before the American president's arrival on his last visit to the UK capital. A photograph pumped up on to a screen by the boss of the Rear Echelon Mother Fucker. A Secret Service guard, his arms thrown aside, gripping a machine pistol that was aimed at the heavens, waistcoat buttons bulging under strain, mouth open, as his president was collapsing, shot, on the pavement, and the caption across the screen's base was the guard's incredulous shout: Christ, it's actually happening. Yes it was, Christ, actually happening.
Clothes weren't right, were too full and too cumbersome for the upper body, too heavy in that morning's sunshine, and there was the loop of wire.
Remembered the cold on the neck, and the hackles up in the Alley where they practised. Saw the window and the cardboard figure in it. It spun and might show him the gun or a child in arms Remembered the age-long inquest after a Brazilian was shot dead in a train carriage: a guy working for a better life, not a terrorist bomber…Remembered an officer who had faced a charge of murder for killing when there was no cause to kill…Remembered a marksman who had fired with justification, and was now a stressed-out shell. The memories careered in his mind.
There was a target behind him, a moving, flowing mass, an ants' nest of activity on the steps and in the square. There was a young man with sweat on his face, a body that was not to scale, and a loop of wire that was too thick for a personal stereo's cables.
Knew it, and could not escape from it — it was actually happening.
He looked into the face of the stranger, the young man. Saw it as a sniper would have. Saw the shake of the chin and the fear in the eyes. Made a judgement, as a sniper had. Passed the sentence, condemned. He smelt, for the first time, the perfume — what a teenage girl would have worn — and the sentence was confirmed, no appeal.
Banks wondered, then, if the young man struggled to be brave — tried to summon up the principles that had sent him — but was now frightened, his brain fogged…He reverted to his training long hours in long years of it, because it was actually happening. The young man was coming level with the alleyway, crabbing sideways to avoid the rubbish bin on wheels. Banks's hand flicked against his jacket, and the weight of a notebook, loose coins and pebbles flapped it back. The hand went, one movement, to the butt of the Glock, and as it was snatched out a finger slid the safety.
The weapon came up, and his feet splayed out.
The young man had stopped dead, and stared.
Banks went to the shooting posture, Isosceles stance. Fast enough? Could not be. Aimed for the head, forehead and temples, but the head seemed to shake as if it sought to remove the reality of the moment. Couldn't, in the time that was a second's fraction, lock the aim over the needle. Gasped in the breath. Saw, the pocket, where the hand was, writhe, and knew the button was pressed and nothing…His finger squeezed, and the target backed away into the alley, and bounced off the rubbish bin. Kept the squeeze on.
She changed down, then stamped on the brake.
The damn thing did it again. Had had to brake or would have hit the van in front. Like two shots fired, the damn car that Avril Harris had bought seemed to explode with noise. It rang in her ears. She blushed, would have gone scarlet, and a man in a car beside her — in an outer lane — leaned clear of his window, grimaced, grinned and called to her, 'You want to have that seen to, Miss. It'll be the crankshaft and timing belt that need adjusting and—'
'Thank you. I know what the sodding thing needs.'
The van in front had pulled forward and she drove on after it, past the square and the great swaying crowd. She heard the town hall's clock strike, and saw the big doors at the top of the steps open, the surge that engulfed the security men.
He dropped the Glock back into the pancake holster, pushed it down so that it was secured. His arms quivered from the recoil of the firing, and cordite stench was in his nose.
His target had been thrown back. Could not see the head or chest because they were lodged behind the rubbish bin, but the frail-built legs and feet — and the loop of wire — were visible to Banks. He felt no emotion, did not know whether he should. He looked behind him, expected to see a crowd gathering in a half-moon, but people walked on the pavement, a pensioner couple, a family, youths with their hoods up, and all hurried towards the steps to the shopping centre, and the traffic cruised by.
He went into the alleyway. The rubbish bin stank of old refuse. He thought it as good a place to die as a forward trench where rats roamed. He looked down, through the shadow light, into the face. Yes, two good shots. Yes, the best a double tap could do. The holes, wide enough for a pencil to be inserted into — or a cheap ballpoint-pen tip — were an inch or so apart and their median point was the centre of the forehead, half-way between the top of the bridge of the nose and the lowest curls of the young man's hair. They oozed blood. He didn't need to, but Banks crouched, felt for a pulse and found none.