The Walking Dead

Its weight sagged in her fingers. He held out his arms, and she slipped one through the space, then went behind him and guided the second through. She saw the pressure from the waistcoat settle evenly on his shoulders, and almost drag him down — but he straightened his back, took the weight. He had the button switch — which she had bought in the hardware shop and might have been used on the light beside her bed at home — in the palm of his hand, pulled the guard cover off it, and she saw the routing of the wires to the detonators, the taping that fastened them to the sticks in the waistcoat's pouches.

The hand that held the button switch was inserted into the sleeve of the leather jacket, then emerged and disappeared again into the side pocket. When his hand was there, inside the pocket, the wire was hidden.

She wanted to be gone. She hurried. Stepped back from him. Left him standing statue still. Threw the jilbab over her head, wriggled and let it fall, wrapped the dupatta round her neck, over her hair and across her face. Needed to be gone from the stink of the place, its darkness, the sweet sickly stench of the perfume.

She.went to the door, crouched at it. He was by the bucket. She had seen his nakedness, but now he was turned away from her. She heard the tinkle against its side before he drew up the zip. He would not kiss her, as he had done in the night — lips on lips, tongues into mouths, teeth gentle on the hardness of her nipples — he had turned away from her so that she would not see it, and his dignity would not be lost…It was over. She had done what she had been told to, had made him strong.

Faria said brusquely, without love, 'Time to go. Come on.'

She moved the plank, went first into the gap. He followed, eased himself through and was careful not to jar the waistcoat under the heavy jacket, blinked in the bright sunlight. She led him up the side of the house. At the end of the wall, Faria looked right, then left, was satisfied and walked quickly to the pavement.

They were a young man and a young woman, unexceptional, unremarkable, on an empty road, heading for its end. At the top of a hill they turned right and began the walk towards the town centre.

The crowds had filled the steps to the doors. Ragged queues stretched across the square, and were already level with the library entrance.

Cheerful — eating chocolate, smoking, gossiping — anticipation grew, and the sun had climbed above the town-hall clock tower and warmed them.

* * *

'It's Mary, isn't it? There's tea or coffee, whichever you prefer. And as of this morning you have taken over stewardship of a section particularly important to us, am I correct? Do help yourself to biscuits or a croissant. I'm told you have grave personal concerns as to the legality and morality of Service actions in this current time of crisis. Those are the fundamentals? Please, take a seat. You asked specifically to see me this morning when, sadly, the dictate of events gives me little time to lay at your disposal, but you should know — and I emphasize it — I take most seriously any such anxieties from the brightest and best of our staff. You know that? Mary, you have my full attention.'

Light poured into the room, pierced the bombproof glass of the windows…and she knew already she was wasting her time. On the upper floor, in the director general's sanctum where she had never been before one on one, he had waved her to a chair that faced the window. While she had nervously, cluttered herself with a cup of tea and a saucer, he had taken a position where he leaned easily against the window-sill. To look at him, to hold his eye, she must peer into the full force of the sun. She was disadvantaged, and understood that nothing was by chance.

She said that a prisoner with proven explosives traces had been wrongly freed from Paddington Green's cells.

'I followed the matter, personally, very closely. I was told subsequent forensics disproved earlier conclusions…but please continue.'

She said it was her belief that the prisoner had been freed, then abducted by her superior — who acted in concert with an American, a liaison agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation…and she remembered the hands on her and the way they had explored not only her body but her face, and she stumbled on what she said — for the purpose of illegal torture and abuse.

'That is a most desperately serious allegation, Mary, but — in your own words — a belief, not substantiated with evidence. For all that, I assure yo I will follow this trail with the utmost rigour. What else, Mary do you have for me?'