The Corporal's Wife (2013) (53 page)

Voices . . .

From behind and in front, muffled in the thickness of the mist.

The moment of panic.

Zach dragged her off the path and they stumbled among rocks. He had her arm. The voices closed on them. He remembered how the day might end: freedom, death, caught and waiting. She hopped after him. Maybe a dozen yards and they were at the edge of the mist. The voices grew in clarity. He dragged her down and lay across her. He didn’t know whether his buttocks showed between the rocks or his shoulders.

The voices melded. Two foot patrols. They cursed the weather. They swore that the frontier was sealed, that the net mesh was tight enough. They talked about the woman who was with those they hunted – laughter cackled. What would they do to her if they caught her? They made bets as to who would go first, if there was no officer. Cigarettes were lit, backs slapped. They cursed the mist again and went on their way.

Zach raised his head and had a fading view of uniforms and weapons. Then the curtain closed on them. He couldn’t go either way on the path for fear of bumping into them. He pulled her up, hitched her arms high and caught her waist. ‘Stay strong, Foxtrot.’

‘You’d be better off without me.’

She was giving him the opportunity to lose her. He clung to her.

Wally hadn’t argued.

Each had a theatre of responsibility: Ralph talked well, was a quality driver, the best shot among them. Wally was the medical wizard and he could shoot nearly as well as Ralph. Mikey was their main man and took the decisions.

They had talked it through.

Mikey’s insistence.

They were nestled among big rocks on a tump near to the centre of the valley, which made a natural fortress. If it hadn’t been for the cloaking mist they’d have had fields of fire all around them. It had been Mikey’s demand that they stop there and debate the decision. Press on, hit the dirt, regard the mist as a gift from God, use the compass and keep going towards the border. Or lie up, find a vantage-point and wait. With each step they had taken, they had expected to hear the pursuit behind them. Not from the ‘ragheads’ or ‘camel jocks’, but from the young man who had the education, the language, and should never have been sent. They were certain that the girl would have dropped out and he’d have come on. Good enough that he had salved his conscience by hesitating, but he’d have seen sense, waved her off and legged it.

No dissent.

They were there, watched, waited and stayed quiet. They itched to smoke, but didn’t, and expected to see him.

They saw patrols. Troops came close enough to smell them. They had good kit, machine-guns, light mortars and snipers’ rifles. They moved easily and were formidable. Once they could have sniffed the fumes from a trooper’s cigarette. Another time they could have reached out and shaken a hand.

Wally would not have made the decision, but he had gone with the flow. Who would know? He doubted anyone would. It would not have been Mikey’s style, or Ralph’s, to stand on the high street in Ealing, up from the Broadway, rant about waiting for a guy to catch up five miles or so on the wrong side of the Iran border. Natalie had never known what he did in Afghan or Iraq, and Contego distributed no medals. He was bloody cold and wet, his stomach was growling from lack of food and his throat was raw because he’d drunk all his water. Mikey hadn’t said how long they would wait, and what chance there was of the mist lifting.

He would have kept walking but it was easier to move with the tide. It was a shit place to be. He leaned forward, across a rock, eased aside Ralph’s H&K, the G36, slid the trauma bag back across his shoulder and whispered, ‘Right now, where would I rather be?’

He won nothing back. They all endured the wait.

They came forward and used the path. It was the same as others they’d been on – the same stones, the same rocks, the same slimy mud.

He supported her, which was difficult because the path that the goats or sheep had made was so narrow.

The blow fell like that of a sledgehammer. Everything was the same: the path, the stones, the wall of mist. She had sniffed all the time he’d taken her forward and had said she’d lost her handkerchief. Now he’d found it. It lay at his feet. They had walked in a circle and ended up where they had started out from before first light. Zach could have cried.

He felt himself shake. He wanted to sink to his knees, and lift his face and howl. Through the mist he heard a voice, likely that of a warrant officer or a senior sergeant. He berated a trooper who had dozed and should have been alert.

Easier to give up. Chuck in the bloody towel and let it fall against the referee’s ankles. Her eyes quizzed him. He could have made a speech: ‘I’m really sorry, Foxtrot, my fault. Because of me, we’ve squandered precious energy, put you far over the pain threshold, achieved a near perfect circle and have come back to where we started.’

He mouthed it. Then he turned her round. He lifted her so that her foot didn’t catch the loose stones on the track. He set a pace. They scuffed stones and kicked into mud.

He went faster than he had through the first hours because he had looked up. The light was brighter. The mist hung close on them, but not over them. Above, it had thinned. There was no sky yet, and no clouds, but they would come. He had wasted precious hours in doing the great circle to end where they had begun. He had not owned up to his doubts or shared them. The mist above his head would clear first, then what hung over the ground. They would be exposed. He hurried. She didn’t criticise him. Zach felt the hand on his shoulder and his own hand above her hip.

They went on, and the light grew around him.

They came back to the house.

Mandy Ross thought she had been pushed further, that night, towards an abyss than ever before, that now she was scrabbling at its edge. Anger caught at her.

The mist was on the ridge they had looked up to from the rendezvous point, but down at the house there was a clear view towards the majesty of Ararat. On any other day, she’d have joshed Dunc with talk of artefacts from the Ark, and the need to buy some more well-rotted timber. Far below the pyramid peak, covered with snow, were the foothills, then the closer ones and the meadow where the horses were. The boy was still with them. He lay on the ground, wrapped in a blanket, but his face was clear and his breath made clouds. The horses’ hoofs were around him but they wouldn’t trample him.

The calls had come. She and Dunc had kept vigil. Neither had known where else to be. She climbed out of the car, slammed the door after her.

The first call had come from that hideous bloody building on the Thames. Sara Rogers had reported, ‘We’ve parted company with the corporal. He’s done a runner.’ Half a dozen questions had risen to her lips, and Dunc had barked his into the receiver, although Sara had hung up. The second call had been from the big man: ‘We’ve told them to cut and run, drop the woman off, excess baggage, and get to the border. They’ll be with you later in the day. Get them out of that theatre and onto an aircraft. Talk more later.’ Not for discussion, and she’d thought it done with a ruthlessness that was hard to stomach.

He unlocked the door. She went through to the kitchen, switched on the kettle and the oven, then raided the fridge: sausages, eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes, potatoes.

She said, ‘Don’t they know it’s fucking people they’re talking about?’

He said, from the living room where he was heaping kindling and small logs into the grate, ‘If you’re not a human being, would you know how to treat one?’

The ring heated and fat bubbled in the pan. ‘It was all for nothing. We’re on our bums here, there’s guys hiking in that place with a half of a bloody army out searching for them. Those guys were put across for
nothing
. Lives on the line. Say something!’

He was calm, almost icy. ‘Sorry, Mandy, but you’re wrong. It wasn’t for nothing. It’s about top table, having a seat there and being ‘‘inside the loop’’. We were walking with the big guys. We were alongside the creeps from the Agency and the humourless automatons from Tel Aviv. We thought being at the top table about justified anything. Isn’t that what we should be thinking?’

‘For fuck’s sake!’

‘The wife was probably never worth the effort because the corporal was about dry.’

‘You never said so.’

‘I never said, ‘‘She isn’t worth the effort’’, true, and neither did you.’

He came to the door. Mandy flicked the food in the pan. Hot oil splashed the front of her fleece. ‘I might take it to my grave that I never spoke up.’

‘Why did we ever think our world could be mysterious and exciting, stressed out, and
clean
? Foxtrot put her life in our hands.’

‘More fool her. How’s that? It’s as dirty, Dunc, as shit on your shoe. Do you want this food?’

‘I think what I want is . . .’

‘Why not?’

She turned off the ring, and wiped her hands on the tea-towel. She glanced at the cooker to confirm that she had switched it off. She looked at Dunc – a decent enough man, and as troubled by the morality of it as she was. To have gone to bed with him once was, perhaps, careless, but to go past the door of her own bedroom and into his marked a different stage. There would be consequences and life would move on, change. She had a husband and a child. He looked at her, steady-eyed.

She shrugged. She said it again, ‘Why not?’

Mandy Ross thought it was the only way she knew of evading responsibility for never having said, of the extraction, ‘She isn’t worth the effort.’ They went through the living room, past the big window that gave a view of Noah’s mountain, the horses and the sleeping boy, and went into his room. She kicked the door shut after them.

They had worked through most of the night and into the early morning. Sidney had proved a stickler for thoroughness.

The babysitters had gone. Petroc Kenning had marvelled at their resilience. No concern shown over a job well screwed, and actually a degree of bonhomie that had previously been under wraps. A final communal coffee on the patio and a smoke, then Sidney had gathered up the butts and bagged them. They would leave nothing behind – neither print nor trace.

He was with Sidney now, and Anneliese waited in the big car.

The others would be at the airport and would take the same flight to London. Then Auntie would be on the link to Aldergrove and was already talking of a walk with his spaniel in the fields around Cloghy. The red rose was in the button-hole of Father William’s jacket, contrasting sharply with his shock of white hair. He’d kissed Sidney’s wife’s cheeks, and had complimented her cooking, then shaken Sidney’s hand as if they were old friends. A bus from Heathrow would take him home. Nobby had seemed reluctant to leave: his route to his occasional girlfriend’s flat was by Underground. There had been no recriminations. The little beggar wasn’t mentioned over the coffee. The last word had been from Father William, who had thanked Petroc for the chance to take that trip to Judenburg, where old family had been, and how a part of their history now had an image to it. The ‘little beggar’ was gone, and the memory of him consigned to a grave. They had waved as the car drove away. He didn’t find fault with them.

‘Are you about ready?’

Petroc nodded.

A mission finished, his own rose was pressed flat inside a Filofax in his bag. On the scales, the outcome would be rated good, not exceptional, and certainly worthwhile. The brothel outlay had been recouped. The only discomfort he felt involved the security of four men on the wrong side of that border . . . but they were not Petroc Kenning’s responsibility. He had not recruited them. They had taken a sort of gamble that they might or might not win. Did any of them feel bad? No.

Yes, he was ready.

A key turned. He noted that Sidney and Anneliese had worn latex gloves for the final run through the safe house. Sidney took the key. They walked away, Petroc leading. He paused. His eyes raked across the vineyards. The harvest was in, the tractors in the barns, and he could look down on the village, the church, the narrow streets, the station, and on the winding, eternal river. He might not say it – the man already possessed an inflated ego – but he believed Sidney had chosen the location well. With a bit of luck the
Spar
might already be open and he’d get Sidney to buy two or three bottles of the local wine, a souvenir. He’d be in London long enough to down a couple and might leave one on Tadeuz’s desk. It was the sort of thing the demi-Pole liked – made him feel wanted.

They edged onto the winding downhill lane and Sidney drove with a chauffeur’s care. Petroc thought the festival decorations looked well on the doorsteps. They came towards the square in front of the church. He saw the number plate. Saw the
Corps Diplomatique
logo. Saw the two men who sat in the front seats, their faces blurred by smoke. Quietly he asked Sidney to pull over and stop. When Petroc Kenning intended to throw a fragmentation grenade, he was always quiet and polite. He’d be a moment.

In the car the windows were up. Both men were smart, well turned out – better than Petroc, who’d had no clean shirt to wear. They watched him. He walked easily towards their car and stopped beside the driver’s door. An older man sat closest to him – Petroc thought he might be the security officer for the delegation: he wasn’t a junior. There was no movement from either and the engine ticked over. It was confirmation of sorts that they had their man and had shipped him on. Now a senior figure had come to the village and retraced the coporal’s steps – as told by Mehrak. They had put themselves where they could see all the traffic coming down the Rote-Tor-Gasse. He stood by their car and smiled affably. Those who knew Petroc Kenning often commented on the quality of his smile – an ice-melter. He smacked his hand on the bodywork immediately in front of the windscreen, hard enough to shake the vehicle and make the wipers bounce off the glass. He was about to do it again when the window came down. He thought it was as his uncle might have played the situation. The window was opened to its limit. He held the smile and spoke Farsi.