The Walking Dead

He saw him, could not miss him. The leather coat was open and the white of the swan was clear and prominent on his chest. Ramzi recognized the bird: they glided on the Derwent river, which split the city that was his home, and made nests on an island close to the bridge that linked the shopping centre to the main bypass round Derby and the county cricket field. It had been in the evening paper, last month, that white kids had thrown stones from the bridge's parapet at the swans' nests with the intention of breaking the eggs, and his mother had said it was disgraceful behaviour. Ramzi crossed the concourse, remembered what he had been told to say and came close to the young man from behind his shoulder. Ramzi said, 'Is that the work of the painter Asselyn?'

There was a short gasp, a fraction of hesitation, the turn of a brain's flywheel, then the smile. 'It is the work of Jan Asselyn…Yes, Jan Asselyn.'

He saw relief split across the young man's face. He had been told that he should use no names and that conversation should be limited to the briefest exchange. But the relief at the approach, the successful exchange of the coded greeting and the response killed his intentions. 'I am Ramzi, and I am sorry to have been late. Please, when we meet with others do not say that I was late.'

'My name is Ibrahim. I won't speak of it.'

Ramzi hugged him. Ramzi was heavy to the point of obesity but he used weights and reckoned his bulk gave him authority. He had been recruited twenty-one months before at a cultural centre in the Normanton district of the city after announcing his determination to be a part of the armed struggle against the oppression of Muslims — in Britain, Checbnya, Kashmir, Iraq, anywhere. He had been told then that his value to the armed struggle dictated he went home, never returned to the cultural centre, and 'slept' till he was woken. He had not believed that the terms of his recruitment represented inadequacy, but held the opinion that his talents would be employed in a strike of major proportions. Roused from sleep a week earlier, he had assumed the role of 'muscle' in the cell that was coming together. Once, before the call, and long ago, Ramzi had boasted that his destiny was martyrdom. In his bear grip, he felt the frailty of the young man, Ibrahim, the prominent bones of his shoulders and the slightness of his arms. For a moment he thought of their destruction.

Ramzi towered over him. 'We should go. We are going to walk. It is quite a long way but there are cameras on the buses and trains. We will seem to part now — cameras are watching us. I will be ahead of you and you will follow…'

'Why do the cameras matter?' The question was asked with simplicity, in good but accented English, and seemed to demand honesty.

Ramzi had been told by the woman — who knew everything, who had arrogance — that the cell had been woken and afterwards would return to a second long sleep. The cameras were important because after the strike the cell would disband and wait for a call to reactivate them, their identities safeguarded.

Ramzi said limply, 'It's what I was told.'

Ramzi hugged him again, tighter, heard the breath hiss from the young man's mouth. He broke away and strode off up the stairs to the station's main concourse. At the top — and he should not have — he turned and looked down. He saw the confusion and, almost, pleading in the young man's face, as if he had expected bonding within a brotherhood but was abandoned; he saw the swan on the young man's chest, between the flaps of his leather jacket — was that jacket big enough to hide a belt or a vest? It was a good jacket — and he thought of the birds that had been stoned on their nests in the Derwent river. He lengthened his step.

In that step there was lightness. He could boast of his determination to be a martyr for God, and know he was not chosen. He was in the rain, leaving the station, and his follower would be tracking behind him.

* * *

'It is what I saw.'

'But what you say you saw is impossible.'

'I saw it, I promise that to you.'

'A person cannot be in two places at the same time,' Omar Hussein said, and chuckled. 'You are wrong. He is in Sana'a.'

'I saw your son, my nephew, at the King Khalid airport in Riyadh. Omar, I have known him all of his life.'

'Did you see his face?'

'I saw his back, but I have seen him walk — from the front and the side and the back — all of his life and mine.'

'Our country has a population in excess of eight millions. Do you not consider, my brother, that one other boy can walk like Ibrahim, if seen only from the back? He is in Sana'a to see cousins, from his mother's family, and in a week he returns to go back to the School of Medicine. Is that not good enough for you?'

'I saw him. The flight was called and he went to the gate. Only one flight was boarding. The flight was the Dutch airline, and was for Amsterdam. I do not lie, brother, and I know my nephew's walk.'

'It is impossible.'

'It is what I saw.'