The Walking Dead

Mary would have done it better, more crisply, but he had the determination. He finished and pushed across the table the three photographs of a boy from a distant land: one showed a shadowed figure, black and white, caught on a CCTV camera at Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport; another, similarly grainy, revealed the same boy coming into Arrivals at Schiphol, Amsterdam's airport, same T-shirt, easily recognizable. The third was a colour portrait of the boy, Ibrahim Hussein, who wore on his head and shoulders a loosely wound khaffiyeh cloth. In none of the pictures was there an indication of threat, danger. He had a pleasant face with a wisp of shyness in his eyes and modesty at his mouth. Naylor was reflecting that it was impossible, from the boy's features and expression and from the calm of his gait at King Khalid and at Schiphol, to believe that the threat and the danger were real. A pencil tapped the table in front of him and his head started up. Beside him he glimpsed Mary Reakes's eyebrows roll upwards.

'You all right, Dickie?' Tristram asked.

'Yes, yes.'

'Don't mind me saying it, but you look knackered.'

'I'm fine, thank you.'

'Well, that's that…So, where do we go? Let's throw it around.'

He had his hand over his mouth as if that would hide his yawn but it engulfed him. 'Sorry about that. We go with the intelligence. If it's necessary for a lock-down in London, so be it. We jack up the threat status. I don't see the alternative.'

There was the hiss of Mary's breath. Then she chipped, 'It's hardly "intelligence", more like a bucket of supposition. What we have is a deception about a visit to family in Yemen and a flight to Holland. The rest is all theatrical. I suggest we wait until the Dutch have brought us more, picked him up or provided proof of his leaving their territory. Simply put, we don't have enough.'

Sensing the opportunity, Naylor hit out, 'It will not be me, I assure you, who will ever lay himself open to the accusation that I was the man who ignored the intelligence, or supposition, indicating the risk of an imminent atrocity.'

The assistant director kept his silence but twisted the pencil faster.

She said, 'That's a cheap shot, Dickie. I'm saying we don't have enough to ratchet the threat status. The intelligence isn't there. We cannot do lock-down — with all that it costs, and the manpower — until we know more. We should watch, listen and learn, then decide. In my experience, the American community are paranoid and hysterical. Bluntly, they cry, "Wolf."'

Her experience, Naylor knew, was substantial and growing. She had been fast-tracked after a degree in Islamic Studies, first-class honours, was fluent in Arabic, had worked in Northern Ireland with distinction, then run a desk in D Branch and had been integral in the team that had put seven young Muslims from the home counties into the cells at Belmarsh. If Mary Reakes hadn't been snapping at his heels, hadn't had the paint chart ready, he would have admired her. But he could feel her breath on his ankles and he loathed her. 'I doubt we have time to dither,' he said.

How many times had he sat in meetings since Nine-Eleven, more particularly since Seven-Seven1 where scraps of intelligence had been thrown into the ring? Endless hours spent digesting little morsels of information. Mornings, afternoons and evenings exhausted with staring at fuzzy or focused photographs of the supposed enemy, and all the little bastards smiled at whatever camera had caught them.

'Emotive language, Dickie,' she said. 'Only trouble is that you don't have enough for lock-down.'

There was a knock at the door.

Tristram called, 'Please, come in.'

It was Penny. She tiptoed across the carpet, dropped an envelope on to the table, and was gone.

Naylor opened it. A photograph spilled clear and a three-line note. He read, then passed the note to Mary. No satisfaction showed on his face. He stared down at the grey images. He saw her jolted, and she pushed the note across the polished surface.

In a flat voice, Tristram intoned, 'Well, Immigration's cameras at Waterloo's terminal would seem to me to suspend the argument. Rather fortunate that our friend is wearing that ludicrously recognizable T-shirt. What is it — a swan? Peculiar, bizarre, but it's him and he's here.'

Mary said, 'Actually, it's The Threatened Swan, by Jan Asselyn, early seventeenth century, housed in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Last year, on a trip with my art-appreciation group, I saw it. It's impressive and—'

'I think, Mary, that it is not the moment for an assessment of Asselyn's work; I'll brief the director in the morning, but you can take it as read. It's lock-down and bugger the budget. Thank you, Mary. Dickie, would you, please, stay on for a moment?'

She swept up the photograph and the note and left them.