A Line in the Sand (11 page)

"I'd ring h

get to be a timekeeper." Fenton smirked.

"Go to work, because

I want it on my desk at lunch-time the threat, what it is, where it's g from."

comin

said it himself: "He chose well, if he won't run."

He had

The cue

end

de the name of the village, which a man wouldn't leave, where

was besi

a

rotected only by a door with a

home was p

new lock and an old bolt.

whipped about him and snatched at his coat.

The wind

He was alone

in

ess.

the darkn

The sea cried beneath him and he sat on the deck far

forward of the lights of the tanker's bridge. The night hours were to him, when he could escape from the claustrophobic

precious

confines

the cabin, which was like a prison cell during daylight because

of

he

ld he must not attract the crew's attention.

had been to

He stayed

there until darkness came, and then he slipped out, glided silently g the hushed corridors of the accommodahon block and eased open

alon

the

tight door that led to the wide length of the deck space above

water

the

tanks. In the night, in the darkness, with the great

crude's

throbbing

power beneath him, he felt the strength of his people and of his God.

Frank Perry had walked for nearly an hour past the green, down to

the

boatyard with the stilted walkways over the river mud, then

darkened

out on the raised path towards the Northmarsh.

He was at the place where the tidal river merged with the inland water the slow-swaying reed-beds.

mass and

There was a crescent moon up

and

w light on the beds. The silence was broken only when he

a shallo

disturbed a swan that clattered, screaming, away. He rehearsed what 66

he

would say, what he would tell her, and he peed the beer out of his d into the still water at his feet.

bladder an

If they had had their

way, Fenton and the younger man who had not spoken, then he, Meryl and

her boy would by now have been rootless flotsam. Maybe they would have

been in an hotel, or an Army camp, or in an empty chalet complex that ble because the holiday-makers had not yet come. There

was availa

would

g to hold on to but the handles of packed suitcases, for

be nothin

ever.

oved her on, if they

If he had m

were now in an unknown bed, listening

for danger in the night, alone, perhaps she would have stayed with him

ear, but finally she would have gone.. . It

for three months, a y

was

her son's home, and he prayed,

his home, and her home and

mumbling, that she would understand... He would stay where he was

safe,

where she was, where his friends were, and her friends... He was

drunk.

He had accepted two more pints than was good for him. It was so long since he had been drunk, the Christmas before last, lights on the

tree,

Stephen in bed with his new toys around him. They'd shared a bottle of

whisky, sprawled on the sofa, her head on his waist, and stayed there until the bottle was finished, then helped each other up the stairs, tittering. He had thought himself blessed.

But he could remember as clearly when he had thought himself cursed.

It

was the second night after the minders had checked him into an Army barracks, and at his insistence they had permitted him a single phone call.

hat they were

They'd huffed, complained, left him in no doubt t

ing him a great favour, and would only drop the rule book that once.

do

Perry had rung his father. Every moment of the call was seared

sharply

in his memory.

"Hello, Dad, it's Gavin. Dad, please don't interrupt me and don't ask

me questions. And don't try to trace this number because it's

ctory and you'll only waste your time.

ex-dire

I've had a difficulty

67

overseas and I'm changing my identity. I don't exist any more. I have

a new name and am starting out on a new life. I've left home. They don't know where I am. I won't be able to make contact again. It's for the best. If I came to see you and Mum I'd be endangering you as

much as myself. Don't, please, think badly of me. There were good d we should all cling to them.

times an

I don't know what the future

holds, but I won't ever forget your and Mum's love for me. Forgive me,

Dad. I'm not Gavin any more. He's gone. Look after yourself, Dad, iss Mum for me." He'd rung off.

and k

ers had been round him and they'd nodded coolly as he put

The mind

down

e phone, implying that he'd done well without bothering to say so.

th

His father had never spoken, there had been only the silence in his ear. That silence on the line had been the moment when he'd known he

cursed... He would not quit again.

was

He listened to the retreating

tched its ghostliness over the reed-beds and the

cry of the swan, wa

quiet water, and turned for home.

was parked in front of the house.

His car

He paused beside it, then

crouched and felt with his fingers into the hidden space above the de wheel for a bag of sugar.

front near si

a flat one? Got a puncture?"

"Got

Jerry Wroughton stood in his door holding his cat, a spiteful little beast that killed song-birds. His neighbour always put it out last night.

thing at

He lied, "Thought I had false alarm."

The cat was dropped and ran to the cover of darkness. Wroughton

asked,

"Are you all right?

days,

You've not looked yourself the last few

Frank."

t I?" He straightened and rubbed the dirt off his hands.

"Haven'

ed to say, and Mary, if there's anything wrong, and we

"What I want

can

you've only to shout."

help,

68

"Do I look that bad?"

"You said it, chief. Pretty grotty. Just yell, it's what

neighbours

are for."

"Thanks, Jerry, I'll remember that you're very kind, both of you.

I

appreciate it."

He went inside, locked the door and pushed the bolt over. He went to

bed, alone, his back to hers, cold. He would tell her in the morning.

It could wait until then.

Chapter Four.

They walked on the beach, their feet crunching on the smoothed stones of red agate, opaque quartz and pink granite, and on the pebbles of cysterine, slate and Torridonian rock, and on the broken scallop,

whelk

and mussel shells. He did not speak until they were quite alone,

away

from a pair of winter shore anglers with their long rods resting on triangles of gawky legs, away from a woman and her toddler, who threw flat stones that bounced then sank into the first wave line, and away from the sight of their village behind the sea barrier of raised

shifting rocks, away from the world. He had told her, at the house on

the green, that he was ready to talk. She had made two curt telephone calls to cancel her commitments for the morning, and she had seen

her

boy, Stephen, charge for a sort of freedom into the Carstairs car.

They

walked together, but they were apart. Her hands were deep in the

pockets of her coat, as if she intended to prevent him taking her

fingers in his.

Perry didn't work his way round to it. There was no delicacy, no

subtlety. It would have been kinder to her if he had come upon it slowly, but kindness wasn't in his script. He wanted the weight of deceit off his back.

"You tell a lie and each day it is harder to retract. The lie breeds a

life of its own. You get so that the lie becomes the truth. You

69

mfortable with it, even though you dread the moment the lie

become co

will be found out. The lie is easy at the beginning, but it becomes, more and more, the hell that you carry." He paused,

gradually,

stared

stones and shells under his feet, then pressed on.

at the

"Frank erry

P

is a fraud and doesn't exist. A woman gave me that name.

if it was all right for me, and I said that I didn't care.

She asked

I

had a new name, new numbers, a new life. It was to block out the

.."

past.

each her, to close the gap between them.

He wanted to r

She was pale

with shock, never looked at him. The waves beside them broke on the ebbles, and were spent on the sand.

shingle p

ything I am telling you now is the truth. My name is Gavin

"Ever

Hughes. Gavin Hughes, until this week, was dead and buried. He died Frank Perry could survive, was buried for my protection.

so that

Gavin

as a chancer, everybody's friend, the good guy with good fun

Hughes w

and good chat. Gavin Hughes had a wife, and perhaps she had seen

nd was growing out of love with him, and he had a son.

through him a

Gavin Hughes had a job, selling, and responsibilities, and was

envied.

He was the good guy who won trust. Gavin Hughes falsified the sale trayed all those who trusted him, went and sold mixing

dockets, be

chines in Iran, and reported back to the intelligence people.

ma

Everything about Gavin Hughes was a lie..."

Above the bluster of the wind, and the rumble of the spent wave surges ble shore, were the cries of the birds on the Southmarsh

on the peb

rrier.

behind the sea's ba

Gulls and curlews, whimbrels, sandpipers

d

an

eled and dived.

avocets whe

She never lifted her head or helped him.

"The machines were for military use in Iran. It was illegal to export for the manufacture of weapons and missiles. All the

them

documentation was lies. I betrayed my company and my colleagues,

and

they didn't ask questions because the order book stayed full and the end-of-year bonuses kept coming. I had good friends in Iran, kind, ordinary, decent friends, and I broke their trust and gave them

and sat their kids on my knee in their homes, and reported

presents

on

everything I learned to the intelligence people. Something was

70

planned. I don't know what because I wasn't on the need-to-know list I

was told that it was better for me that I did not know. There was a

last visit to Iran and a last debrief back in London, and the links were cut, like a slice with an axe. Gavin Hughes died overnight.

I

walked out of my home, with two suitcases, and was buried by the

llowing morning. Whatever was planned, from the information I

fo

gave,

eath of Gavin Hughes a necessity. It was for my own

made the d

protection."

At the top of the wall behind the beach, where the sea never reached, ggling plants grew from the stones; glasswort, sea lavender,

the stra

wormwood and beet. As he had known the names of each of the integral of the mixers the screws, nozzles, end-plate jackets, the cored

parts

blades, the air-purge seals now he knew the names of the plants and the

pebbles.

ce people was used in an action against

"What I told the intelligen

e

th

Iranians.

considered in jeopardy.

My life was

I ran, I quit. For

a

a package that was moved around, a

few days, not many, I was like

rcel in a sorting office, thrown between military bases,

pa

safe-houses,

pty hotels. I left behind my family, my job, my friends,

em

everything

had known.

I

And I started again, and I found you. With you, I made

a

home, new family, new friends... I was so damned lonely before

new

you

have never been back.

came... I

I didn't tell you, but two months

ago

see my father.

I went to

They'd done that appeal, what they put on

the

en a parent is dying and has lost track of a child.

radio wh

Imagine

what they thought in the hospital:

an old man is sick and his middle-aged child has disappeared out of his

life.

old you I had a business meeting.

I t

He didn't die, he wept

when he saw me, he called me by my real name. I didn't tell him who I

71

was and where. I came home to you and the lie was alive again. I thought the lie would last for ever..."

He walked on, towards the far distant bright little shapes of beached boats hauled up high for the winter. It was a moment before he

realized she was no longer abreast of him. He turned. She sat on the

stones where they made a line against the wet sand that marked the of the tide's encroachment. He went back and sat close to

extent

her.

"Take a transcript spit, pick your nose, urinate in the corner.

ng is permissible provided you've taken a transcript," Fenton Anythi

had

said.