The Walking Dead

He wore a cassock of oatmeal brown and it swung like a frock as he moved. The rain glimmered on her suit's shoulders and in her hair, and her heels echoed beside him. She told him of that evening, and all through that week, of the numbing sense of failure that strangled life from her workplace.

'The motto of our Service is "Defender of the Kingdom". Our sole job now, for three thousand of us — and all the police agencies — is to defend our kingdom against a new atrocity. Simon, does that justify torture?'

He grinned. 'You know the answer for yourself.'

'I have to be given confirmation of it — I have to know I'm not walking alone.'

'But you will, Mary you will walk alone. You will be shunned and ostracized. The career — so important to you — will wither. Brickbats and insults will be your reward. Or you can turn away and empty your mind of what you know.'

'When you were in Baghdad…'

'Morality is not a focus group — and I don't mean to mock you. The vision of morality is with the individual. Is torture ever, justified? In Baghdad, daily, there are atrocities of indescribable evil, and.many say that such evil should be confronted by measures that are extreme to the point of repugnance. If I go to the airport, where prisoners are screened, or to the Abu Ghraib gaol, and call for respect to be shown those who manufacture the bombs and plan their targeting, and talk of religion and the dignity of mankind, I will be shown the gate — probably pitched out of it on to my face. I see the problem from a different perspective. I look at the witness. If the witness keeps silent then he, or she, demeans himself, herself. That man, or woman, must live with the decision. I doubt, Mary, because you are my valued friend, that you could cross to the other side of the street, avert your eyes, erase what you have known and maintain your pride. But the sustenance of your pride will come at a price, a heavy one. You know that.'

She slipped her arm into his. Their steps had slowed and the darkness grew round them. Dulled lights lit the broken walls.

He told her of a man, implicated in the bomb plot to assassinate Hitler, called Pastor Bonhoeffer, who had been hanged in the Flossenburg concentration camp a month before the final ceasefire of the Second World War. He told her of what the man had written, in his condemned cell, and apologized for his paraphrase. 'When they took the trade unionists, I did not protest because I was not a trade unionist. When they took the Communists, I did not protest because I was not a Communist. When they took the Jews, I did not protest because I was not a Jew. When they took me, no one protested because no one was left.' He lifted her hand from his arm and kissed it. She lifted her head, reached up, and kissed his cheek.

She saw only shadows. 'I have to get back.' She turned away, walked quickly towards the exit arch, away from the place where nails had been fashioned into a cross.

He called after her, 'I'd like to say that I'm here, Mary, always. Not true. I return to Baghdad in a week, will be there maybe three months. I urge you, pay the price, don't cross the street — don't look the other way. Hold your pride.'

* * *

'Look, I'm not picking a fight, but I'm entitled to an answer. Did you or did you not telephone the police?'

It was the fourth time she had asked the question, and three times the farmer had denied his wife a reply. Last evening he had shrugged and pleaded tiredness. At breakfast he had changed the subject to the latest ministry questionnaire on harvest yields. At lunch he had told her she nagged, had bolted his food and gone back to his tractor. He picked at his dinner, ate, swallowed and answered. 'No.'

'We agreed you were going to call the police.'

'I changed my mind. It's allowed.'

'So, there was a fire behind the Wilsons' barn. In the fire there were, scraps of burned sheet, with patterns the same as Oakdene's, and towels. Together we went to the cottage. We found it empty and all trace of our guests gone. The cottage was cleaner — I'm not ashamed to say it — than from any scrub I've given it, and every room, the bathroom and loo, the bedrooms, living room and kitchen, stinks of bleach. Is that not something that should be reported to the police?'

'They paid for a month.'

'Paid cash, don't forget, in advance.'

'It was just bedding and towels.'

She grimaced. 'Can be replaced.'

'Which didn't go through the books, and wasn't paid into the bank,' he said.

She looked away, out through the darkened window and towards the shadow silhouette of the roof of Oakdene Cottage. 'Questions asked.'

'First thing Plod asks, "How did they pay? Before they thieved your sheets and vandalized your towels, did they pay by cheque? Cash in hand?" Maybe Plod wants to get his hands on the banknotes and run them through for tests, I don't know. Questions with difficult answers.'

'Best left alone?'