The Walking Dead

In the corridor outside his cell's door, a clutch of men formed up round him, and none had a word for him. The echo of metal-tipped toecaps and heels played in his ears, but his arms were not held as they had been on each of the times he had been taken from his cell to the interviews…He had said nothing. He had followed every instruction given him when he had been recruited those many months before. He felt pride in that silence. Truth was, if lost hours could have been regained, if actions could have been undone, he would never have left the cottage — would have stayed in his bed and not disguised it. But Ramzi could not retrace those steps and all he could offer to the family — Syed, Khalid, Jamal and Faria, the Leader and the bomb-maker — was his silence, was the places at which he had focused on the floor, walls and ceiling. He had a small stirring, but growing, pride in his silence. And he walked, in the corridor, then through barred gates and up the steps, the better for his pride. Another door, steel-sheeted, was opened when numbers were punched by the head of his escort into a sunken panel. He was led left, and there was more uncertain chaos in his mind…They had used two interview rooms to question him — and to listen to his silence — but they were off, through a set of swing doors, to his right. He was brought to a counter on which were laid two plastic bags, and he hesitated.

He did not know that the two teams of detectives who had posed those questions were now stood down, asleep in their beds. He did not know that the assistant director had produced a single sheet of paper, headed with the printed address of a Home Office-sponsored forensics laboratory. He did not know that the superintendent had sworn out loud as he had read, 'I confirm that an initial examination of the swabs taken from the hands of the suspect RI 01 I 18.04.07 was flawed. Further and more detailed tests have shown conclusively that no, repeat no, traces of banned explosive materials were present on the samples given to us. No indications exist that the suspect handled or was in direct proximity to such materials. My department apologizes for the earlier false analysis provided to you, and trusts you have not suffered inconvenience. Faithfully…' There had been a scribbled set of initials over the typed name of a professor of Forensic Studies. He did not know anything.

Around him he felt a wall of hostility. Nothing was said, but it radiated. The plastic packets were pushed towards him and he reclaimed his watch from one, his wallet from the other. He stood to his full height, heaved back his shoulders and believed he had destroyed their best efforts — and the disgust and shame that had swamped his mind when on the bench bed were gone. A form was handed to him — which listed his watch and his wallet — with a biro, and he made an unrecognizable scrawl to acknowledge receipt.

He did not know that a whole chain of uniformed policemen, those close to him in the prisoner-reception area and those who wore suits to question him and were in their beds, had been kept in absolute ignorance of what was planned for him.

The pride veered towards conceit. His silence had beaten them. He said, 'It is always the same. You persecute us. To be Asian, a Muslim, is sufficient for us to be persecuted. Innocent people, as I am, are abused, imprisoned without cause…I am free now?'

He had thought he faced fifteen years or longer. There was so much that Ramzi did not understand. In a moment of idiocy he had handled the sticks that were in the waistcoat pouches, and the dog had found the traces that the rain had not washed off. Then he blanched, and his shoulders fell. Why was he released, freed?

But a voice, behind him, wiped the confusion. Quietly snarled, 'That's right, chummy, free to piss off out of here.'

He spun, did not know which of them had said it.

He looked down at his watch. 'What am I supposed to do at this time in the morning, five o'clock?'

Another voice, again behind him: 'Don't bloody complain, you don't have to walk. There's a car waiting for you — will take you where you want to go. Goodbye, friend, and goodnight.'

He smelt the staleness of their breath, and the whiff of whatever fast-food they had swallowed in the night hours. They made a little aisle for him, and he walked through it to the door gaping ahead. He did not look back.

When the cold was on his face and the rain cascaded in front of him, a hand snaked past his body and pointed down the street to his left. He saw the rear lights of a car parked against the pavement.

He imagined the faces beading at his back.