The Walking Dead

Late into that Friday night, as the end of the holy day approached, the officer of the Secret Intelligence Service sat in his protected office, behind steel-plated doors and blast-proof windows, and fashioned the signal he would send to London…and he reflected on the prematurely aged, small, dumpy man, with the drawled red-neck accent, who peddled his theory of catastrophe. Travelling at night, glorying in the blast of sand-laden air on his face, his eyes hidden by tinted glasses, the stick always in his hand and slotted against his knee, the man had offered Simon Dunkley what was only a hunch but so believable.

He was going far out on a limb. He imagined the reaction to his signal: chaos. Then the enquiries: new on station, wasn't he? Had he the experience to assess the supposed intelligence? No bloody option but to send what was another agent's, another national's, hunch…It went to code, was transmitted. For a long time he stared into the night and could not lose sight of his source. Then the call-backs started.

To each of them, Simon Dunkley had the same answer: 'I have sent what I have been told but, personally, I'd rest my life in Joe Hegner's hands. It's the man he is.'

Chapter 7

Saturday, Day 10

The phone rang. Spread across the kitchen table, among the coffee mugs, toast crumbs and the plate on which he had been served scrambled egg and grilled tomatoes, were the brochures. With his breakfast, Anne had been feeding her husband on holidays and the choice was Dickie's. He could plump for an early-season Mediterranean cruise, last-minute booking and therefore at a cut-rate price, or a railway journey to the Swiss Alps, or a boat trip up the Rhône with excursions to vineyards. But the phone yelled to be answered and he saw irritation on his wife's forehead. Under duress, he was looking at the train trip to the mountains. She beat him to it and Naylor was only half out of his chair by the time she was at the door and heading for the hall table. She'd said that as soon as he had erected the flat-pack greenhouse, and put in the tomato plants — she had already arranged for Mrs Sandham next door to water them — they should be off to the Mediterranean, Switzerland or France.

The ringing had stopped.

Did he care which it was? Not a great deal. He wasn't good on holidays. Whether it was Bournemouth, Bruges or Bordeaux, he would do the tramping, the galleries and museums, then buy a newspaper and, back in the hotel room or cabin, he'd flick for the running news channel on the television, and the books he'd brought stayed unread. She told him each time they went that he only lightened up when they were travelling with home as the destination, and work the next Monday morning.

She was at the door. 'It's Penny, doing night duty. She wants to speak. I said she'd caught us just before we went out — she said she needs to talk to you.'

She stood aside, arms akimbo, hands on hips, her familiar gesture of annoyance.

He smiled as if helpless. 'On a Saturday morning — funny, that.'

Naylor went to the phone, paused and looked down at the receiver. It lay off the cradle and on the Yellow Pages. He hesitated, then lifted it. 'Dickie here — good morning, Penny'

From Riverside Villas, it was not a secure line to 47 Kennedy Avenue in Worcester Park. Guardedly, he was told of a signal that had come across the river from the 'Sister' crowd, and that it had created 'something of a flap'.

'Who's in?' he asked.

'All the minor bosses, and the major boss is on stand-by and might be in by mid-morning. From what I can see, Dickie, it's a big, big flap.'

'And is it ours?'

'Yes. It's what we do.'

'Is Mary in?'

'Been here an hour. She said it wasn't necessary to spoil your weekend, it being the last. Now she's in a meeting, and I thought it right to call you. I wouldn't have bothered you but nobody's walking, everybody's running.'

'I'll be straight there,' he said.

Back at the kitchen door he offered a curt apology to Anne. What was she supposed to do? Go to the travel agent on her own? She should. And book? Whichever option she preferred. He was on the stairs when he heard her angry hiss: 'Daddy never went in at weekends. What do they want you for when you're virtually out of the door? Daddy would have told them to go jump.' He thought, reaching the landing, that only if he were blessed would he never again hear of her father. In their bedroom, he dragged a suit out of the wardrobe, a work shirt and tie from a drawer. His black London shoes were under a chair. He stripped off his Saturday clothes and dressed again.

Back in the hail, unhooking his coat from the stand, he called, to the kitchen, 'I don't know when I'll be back.'

'How much do I spend?'

He grinned cheerfully, 'As much as you can lay your hands on. Splash out, why don't you?'

Naylor was gone. A brisk stride down Kennedy Avenue, as much of a shambling run along the main road's pavement as his sixty-five years permitted, then a scramble up the steps at the station.