The Walking Dead

He didn't call him the Rear Echelon Mother Fucker, but said, 'I'm hoping, sir, that you've got a moment. It's Banksy, sir.'

The reply was dismissive. 'Only a moment.'

'What I wanted to say, sir, was…well…it's…' His voice died and he stumbled for words.

'If you didn't know it, Banksy, I have better things to do than listen to your breathing.'

'It's just that I've been thinking…what I should be…' Again he was caught out and could not find them.

'Christ, Banksy, you sound like a teenager asking her mother if she can go on the pill. Don't you know things are quite busy back here? I've another phone going, do I pick it up?'

'Thinking what I should be doing and where I should be.'

'Think a bit harder about your orders: what, is looking after jurors — where, is Snaresbrook Crown Court. All right? Is there anything else?'

He heard that second phone answered, and a second caller was asked if he could wait a minute, no longer. Banks let the hesitation go fly. 'I realize now, sir, that my attitude to colleagues was out of order. I am prepared, absolutely, to make a fulsome personal apology to the rest of Delta for my behaviour.'

'Wouldn't that be nice? Quite touching.'

Banks swallowed hard. 'I want back in. I need, sir, to belong again.'

'Am I hearing you right?'

'I want to come off this crap job and rejoin Delta. I will, sir, apologize with no strings. I admit that my behaviour to colleagues was unacceptable. Do I, sir have your support? Please, sir.' The rain mixed with the sweat on his forehead and the damp seemed to shrink the collar round his throat, and his jacket clung tightly to him. 'That's what I'm asking, sir, for a chance to get back to Delta. It's where I should be.'

'You're a bag of laughs today, Banksy.'

'I know that Delta's doing a proper job of work, and I reckon I should be with them. Sir, I've learned a lesson and will not speak again out of turn. I don't see that I can do, say, more…' A hand was over a phone, but he heard the muffled request for the second caller to continue waiting, and the quip: 'It's just a little administrative fuck-up to sort out, but I'm about there — give me thirty seconds.' Banks knew now what he was: an administrative fuck-up…and knew his value. He listened.

'You want to come back in, want everything forgotten…I'm not enjoying this, Banksy. I have every man and woman capable of carrying a firearm out on the streets, and some who are so ropey and stale on their training I wouldn't want to be within a half-mile of them. They're all doing double shifts, sixteen hours a day, while you're joy-riding round the Home Counties in your jury bus. God knows how many of them are popping pills to stay awake. Why? Because this city is under threat, real threat. They are looking for a suicide-bomber — not possible, not probable but actual — and if they see him, and I pray to God they do, they'll slot him. They're the front line in the defence of London. Oh, wait a minute, good old Banksy — superior bastard but we'll forget that — wants to rejoin the team. But it's not as easy as that, Banksy, not any more. You see, the doubt exists as to whether you're just a square peg that won't slot down into the round hole, whether you're up to the standards demanded of the job. That's the feeling, and whining about apologies won't change it. Sorry and all that…My advice, go back to jury nursing and leave the real work to those who've the bottle to handle it. In the pleasantest possible way, Banksy, get fucking lost.'

He switched off. His jacket, heavy and sodden, with the notebook in the pocket, slapped against his hip.

He walked through the smokers on the building's outer steps — they skipped aside to let him pass — and flashed his card at Security. In his wake the corridor floor was sheened with the wet off his shoes and the mud. He went into court eighteen and took his old seat. He looked across the court at the brothers, at the barrister who was on wind-down, at his Principal.

Wally leaned close. 'You all right?'

'Never been better, ' Banks said.

'Sure?'

He heaved a sigh, and murmured, 'I did something I shouldn't have, and from it I learned some truths. Not to worry now, because I've unravelled that problem and it's behind me. I'm fine.'

He was a traitor to two men, one in his mind and the other across the width of the court. He caught the eye, saw the wink directed at him, and stared back at the juror.

* * *

'Did you see that?' Ozzie Curtis rasped the question to his brother. 'See what?'

'God, you're so dumb — don't you see nothing?'

'Seen nothing.'

Ozzie Curtis's mouth was against his brother's ear. 'The bastard's doing eye contact, winks and all, with that 'tec in the gallery.'

'Which one?'

'The one that's come back like a drowned rat.'

'How'd you know he's a 'tec, Ozzie?'

'Because he has a shooter on his hip — haven't you seen it?'

'Haven't.'

'Well, start looking at the bastard. See him, he's all smug and comfortable, and the bastard thinks he's safe, with his shadow We're going down, Ollie, and — '