The Walking Dead

'The officer who fired the shots — reacted so fast that this murderous Saudi did not have the chance to detonate himself — is, I am told, a steady fellow and not one to make waves.'

'A first-class man, Tris, and I hope with a bright future. If those dunderheads at Great Victoria Street have a modicum of sense, he'll be tracked for fast promotion. He's saved us from acute embarrassment.'

'I'll pass the word, with discretion — nothing happened.'

'Excellent, and come and have a little wet with me tonight, a sherry or three. There's cause for quiet celebration. Oh, the Reakes woman, she won't be silly, will she?'

'A level-headed girl.'

'Thank you, Tris. We were so near to being trampled and broken reeds…A most satisfactory beginning to a day when nothing happened — make sure you come and see me at the end of it.'

* * *

A purser said to a steward, 'There's a blind gentleman in business class, American, third row back and by the port-side window. Looks pretty helpless, keep an eye out for him.'

'Sad, must blight a life being so dependent. My imagination, or are his glasses stuck together with tape? Probably walked into a door. Of course, I will.'

* * *

A detective from Special Branch, briefed and regarded as reliable, had been admitted to a terraced home in an East Midlands city.

He sat in a small living room opposite a mother and daughter, and there was a framed photograph of a son, a brother, behind them. He said, with practised sympathy, 'The problem was that Ramzi formed associations with dangerous people. We released him and sent him home and know that he reached very near to here. The rest is surmise…We believe he made contact with those people. They may have concluded that we had turned him after his arrest, then freed him so that he could inform on them. It's not true, but they may have thought it. There are, now, two possibilities: they may have murdered him, or he may have fled beyond their reach. We will be, you have my promise, working day and night to ascertain which, and I most strongly advise you to leave these matters in our capable hands. If he is still living, your own enquiries could jeopardize his safety…I think you understand, and we'll hope for the best.'

* * *

'Oswald Curtis, for this heinous and disgusting crime, you will serve twenty-two years' imprisonment. Oliver Curtis, a younger brother and undoubtedly under the influence of your elder sibling, you will serve eighteen years' imprisonment. Take them down.'

Mr Justice Wilbur Herbert, well satisfied with the trial's outcome and with the quality of his address, watched them escorted from court eighteen, their faces flushed in impotence and anger. He did not know of the chain of events begun when the brothers had employed Benny Edwards, the Nobbler — and the links of that chain that had put, with inevitability, a Protection Officer on to a pavement outside a newsagent's that fronted on to a town square.

He congratulated all of the jury on their courage, but his eye was on the bearded man who wore sandals, the school teacher.

'All rise,' his clerk shouted.

* * *

The golf team's secretary was first back at the bar, the churchyard's mud on his polished shoes, and the darts team's treasurer was at his shoulder. He ordered for them and waited for the drinks, doubles of Scotch, to be given him.

'That's something I'll never forget,' the secretary said. 'I mean, all those Americans there, Rangers and Green Berets, and that unit pennant on old GG's coffin, and that big sergeant singing the "Battle Hymn" over the grave. Don't mind admitting it, I was crying fit to bust.'

The empty stool was beside them.

'Sort of humbling,' the treasurer said. 'How wrong can you get? Thought he was just a sad old beggar who lived with his fantasies, and it was all real and we took the piss. You just never know a man, do you? God, we'll miss Gorgeous George…'

They raised their glasses and toasted the vacant stool.

* * *

Longer afterwards, the tangles were tidied and the ends knotted.

* * *

From behind a desk, Mary Reakes worked with driven energy for the cathedral's International Centre for Reconciliation.

Other ladies with whom she shared office space in the building beside the new cathedral had considered, lightly, opening a sweepstake — with a prize of a tin of chocolates — to be won by the first who saw the incomer smile. They did not know where she had come from, or why — each day her face was set with an undisguised chill — and her cubicle had no decoration except old and new postcards from the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. She did not share.

The head teacher of a secondary school said to her deputy, 'I think Julian's settled in well. Don't understand him. Can't imagine why a man with his qualifications wants to make his life here, the back end of Adelaide — must have been something of an earthquake that dropped him down on us.'

'And you don't get anything of explanation from him, or from his partner.'