The Walking Dead

No exasperation, no bluster and hurry: 'It would, of course, be best for you, Ramzi, to be utterly truthful with us. You've been in a cell with comrades, but you're now alone. Help us, and you help yourself. You realize, — don't you, the advantages of cooperation?' The silence echoed in his ear.

Mary said, 'I wouldn't swear to it, but I think he is, if anything, more comfortable now than when we came in. Still frightened, but it's like he believes he can survive…The eyeline is still on the wall by the floor. He doesn't risk contact.'

Nor would he. Didn't have to. Hegner asked if anything had been said by the prisoner. 'Nothing,' was the laconic voice's response, 'not a single word.' What had he said in the car coming south to London? Hadn't opened his mouth. They had a name — had they now an address? Officers were still at the house, with his mother and his two sisters; his room was clean, bare, and his lap-top computer had the hard drive removed. There were no posters of Islamic jihadists and no books and no pamphlets in his room that were relevant, and all that had been learned was that the man had been absent from home — on an IT course, his mother said, but had not known where — for thirteen days.

He did the arithmetic in his mind. Ibrahim Hussein, wearing the T-shirt of The Threatened Swan had gone through King Khalid airport, had flown out of Riyadh, seven days before. Ibrahim Hussein, still in that damn shirt, had come off the Eurostar five days before. Hegner leaned back, groped, found Mary's arm. 'That boy was met at that train station.'

'But we didn't have a face for the greeter, only the boy.'

'Describe the build of the greeter.'

He heard the snap of the lock on her shoulder-bag. He had already decided on the body shape. He sought only to confirm his status. She was rifling among papers. Another question was put, was met by the same silence.

Mary said, 'Big, heavy and filling an anorak, over six feet in height, and two thirty — could be two forty — pounds was the estimate.'

Hegner stood; in doing so he kneed the groin of the officer beside him, did not apologize. He swung his stick ahead of him, hit the leg of another officer and the table's. 'I find the air kind of suffocating in here,' he said.

He shook Mary's hand off his arm. From the door he called, 'Thank you for your welcome,' and he murmured, too softly to be heard, 'Keep going the way you are and you might break him by Christmas.'

He set off down the corridor at pace, and Mary Reakes was skipping to keep up with him. He remembered exactly each step he had taken into the building, and the route to get clear of it. Hegner stopped, stood in the yard, and the rain lashed him. He said, 'They're going nowhere, and fast. That was a joke.'

He heard Naylor: 'Quite predictable, they never talk — all of them have had the training on resistance to interrogation.'

'That was no interrogation, that was like a PTA conversation.'

He heard Mary Reakes: 'In the gathering of evidence to go before a court it is not permitted to suggest that cooperation will be rewarded with a reduced sentence. It would be what we call "offering an inducement". It's not admissible — would most likely lead to acquittal.'

'Mary, you're a great lay but this is old men's work and you'd do well to go sit in your tower, dream moralities and stay clean.' There was a gasp, a choke, then a clatter of her heels, and he heard their car door open, then slam.

Naylor said, hoarse, 'Spit it, Joe, get it out.'

'Do you want to crack this guy or not? Do you want to listen for the bang, then scrape up the bits on the pavement and up the buildings' walls to stay clean? Who's going to go the extra mile? Where I work, we do that mile, get the mud on our boots, then they talk. You got hang-ups, Dickie? Are you in the lady's camp, waiting for the explosion? Think I got you wrong, Dickie. Maybe you're a man to go slack on me. Do you have people who'll do the business, do what's necessary?'

'I'm not her cheer-leader but what you said to her was out of order. She's in the car now, sobbing. Please, make your peace…Yes, I do have such men and I've put them on stand-by.'

'Get them here — talking is wasting time. Trust me, Dickie, you ain't got time.'

Hegner went to the car.

* * *

Naylor stood in the centre of the yard, the rain coursing down his face. He dialled.

He thought it was about duty. About, of course, the carrying-out of a verbal instruction — no minutes taken, nothing on paper…no. He covered himself in those two frail cloaks. It was the right thing to do, and it was an order given him.

His call was answered.