The Walking Dead

He manipulated her mind. His hand was under the coat she wore, the sweater and the T-shirt. His fingers played on the skin of her stomach. His nails made gentle patterns on the smoothness, softness of her navel. He did not work his hand up towards her breasts or down to her groin. She had not moved his hand.

He was not aroused by the touch of her against his fingers: what he did was a tactic of war. He made little sensual movements and could hear the growing pant of her breath. The experience of his mother, and, the scars left in him by the learning of it, had left deeper wounds on him than the pitted line across the forehead and cheek' of the girl. He had no trust in emotion, believed it weakness. To have had sex with her would have disgusted him perhaps frightened him. He heard the rustle and knew that her legs opened 'for him, but his fingers, nails, stayed on her stomach. Above the scent of the straw he smelt her wetness. He teased her, but it was only as a tactic of manipulation to achieve what he thought was necessary.

She was a virgin. If she had not been she would have pulled down his hand, buried it in her hair, and she had not.

He heard the breathing of the boy, steady but heavy with catarrh, beyond the wall of bales. It asked so much of him, the simpleton who was in love with God, that he must endure the delay, and he had thought hard as to how he could hold the resolve of the boy for more hours, more days.

The nail of his forefinger penetrated her navel cavity, and he heard the small gasps. He moved his hand away, rolled on to his side with his back to her, left her.

There was silence, long, and her breathing slackened.

He had angered her, knew it and intended it.

She was the pick of the cell, the only one among them that he valued.

Her anger burst. She spat out her whispered anger: 'Is it arrogance that drives you, or cowardice that rules you? Which? Are you, in your mind, too important to die, or too frightened? Which? It is never the leaders who make the sacrifice. The leaders choose targets, they make the vests, they recruit, and they tell young men of the rewards of Heaven and of the praise that will be heaped on them when they have gone to Paradise, but at the last they stand aside. Are you too valuable? Is the fear too great? Everything you have done since you came is to ensure your own safety and ability to run, to be clear. I have not seen, ever, from you one moment of compassion for him, nothing. And I have read that in Palestine it is not the young boys of the leaders who wear the vests, because they are sent away — abroad — for education and it would never be. permitted for them to wear one. I tell you, I think that he is the one with true courage, but you treat him, as if he were a package, disposable, to be thrown away. I despise you.'

The anger stilled. She would not have known it, in the darkness and with his back to her, but he smiled and was well satisfied.

Chapter 14

Thursday, Day 15

The ceiling light had been on, dull behind its mesh, since they had brought him back from the last session of questioning, but it was the cell door opening that woke Ramzi.

He jolted up on the mattress. For moments he did not know where he was, then the clarity came. A uniformed man stood in the doorway, eyed him with withering distaste, then tossed a bundle of clothing and a pair of trainers on to the end of the bed. He blinked, wiped his eyes. He realized his home had been raided, searched, and the clothing had been brought from there. For a few seconds he thought of his mother and sisters, of the violation of their home by men with cameras and plastic bags, and their sifting through his family's territory. Confusion wafted in him…Why? Why had he been brought clothing and shoes from home? He- looked for an answer from the man, but there was none, only a grim, sour face staring back at him. He pushed up off the mattress and felt the stiffness in his muscles.

Under the man's eye, Ramzi peeled the paper suit off his shoulders. Slowly, he dressed in the new gear given him, and he did not understand. When he was dressed, the man's finger beckoned for him to follow. He was led out of the cell, and the paper suit was left behind.

He did not know of the bitter row in the small hours, between a superintendent of the Anti-Terrorist Unit and an assistant director of the Security Service, that had raged in a corridor of New Scotland Yard's tower building. He did not know that an assistant director had won the hour. Or how.