Gerald Seymour - The Unknown Soldier

'I tell you who I blame most… that Perkins at the school. Made too much of a fuss of Caleb, made him do things that weren't natural to him. Speaking in front of the class, being special, marking him out.

Caleb got so that nothing satisfied him. I was dirt. No respect for me, . his mother. No respect for the people in the job he had. Always dreaming of something he couldn't have. Why couldn't he have a family like Farooq, like Amin? Why couldn't he belong? He only wanted the Asians – didn't even have a nice white girlfriend. Could have had Tracey Moore or Debbi Binns. Truth to be told, girls scared him and he ran a bloody mile from them. Then the offer came. Nag, nag, nag, money, money, money. He never came back, nor did my money.'

Looking out through the kitchen window – and Dietrich didn't think it had been cleaned that year – he saw a rubbish-filled yard, a washing-machine tipped on its side against a low wall, and above it, the walkway that he knew from the map was beside the canal. A group of loafing kids wandered along it, and he saw an old man with a bent back, who had a terrier straining on a leash, move aside to give them passage. He seemed to understand it was a place to escape from. Lovejoy had driven him through the estate on their way to the early-morning knock. Little streets, little terraced homes, little food shops, and everywhere the little bright-painted boxes of security systems. The only buildings of stature on the estate were the new mosque and the new Muslim community centre. It was a ghetto, not a place where Caleb Hunt could have belonged, and Jed understood why it had failed to provide the man with what he needed. All so different from the scrubbed-down interrogation rooms of Camp Delta where he met the enemy – but he learned more here than there.

'They came round to see me, Farooq did and Amin, and they weren't straight up with me but they stuck to it – Caleb had gone travelling. I'd hear from him, they said, but he'd gone travelling.

He's a grown-up, and I got on with my life. Two postcards came, one after two months and one after five. The Opera House in Sydney, and that big rock in the middle. It's more than three and a half years since the last one came. Nothing at my birthday, nothing at Christmas. I suppose he's forgotten me.'

Tears ran down her lined, prematurely aged cheeks. She looked up, past Dietrich, towards Lovejoy.

'Who did you say you were from?'

'I didn't.' Lovejoy stood. 'Thank you for the tea, Miss Hunt.'

They went out of the front door, on to the pavement.

Two big vans, smoked-glass windows, were parked, one at each end of the short street. They walked past the van at the top, and Lovejoy rapped on its window with the palm of his hand. They went on, round the corner, to where the Volvo was parked. Lovejoy wasn't a man to linger for the uglier side of his work. They would be well gone, speeding on the road south, when the detectives spilled from the vans, elbowed inside, tore apart the terraced house for evidence of the life, times and motivations of Caleb Hunt. Not that Dietrich thought there was anything left to know.

They reached the car.

Lovejoy asked brusquely, 'You happy, ready to call it a day?'

Dietrich said, 'Ready to wrap, yes. Happy, no.'

'The postcards?'

'The postcards say that right from the start they marked him down as high potential for infiltration, created a cover. They reckoned they'd their hands on high-grade material. We did well but I don't feel like cheering or breaking out a bottle – I suppose it's because I think I know him.'

'I'll get you on the afternoon flight – my granddaughter's birthday today, and I'll catch the end of the party, which'll please Mercy. I find there's not often cause, in our work, for cheering… Never seems quite appropriate.'

They drove away, out of the estate, over the canal and left behind the place that had fashioned the past, present and future of Caleb Hunt.

The file was under his arm. On it was written the name.

'I want Mr Gonsalves on the phone, and I want him now. Please.'

The marine guard and the receptionist stared at the scars on Eddie Wroughton's face.

'You should tell him I am in possession of information he'd give his right ball for, and if you obstruct me I guarantee to flay the skin off your backs. You want to sit comfortably again, then do it.'

A call was made. The receptionist murmured into the phone and fixed Wroughton with a glance of sincere hostility. Somebody would be with him soon. Would he like to sit down? He paced and held tight to the file.

The young man came down the stairs, went through the security barrier, and tracked towards him. 'I'm sorry, Mr Wroughton, but Mr Gonsalves is in conference, and I am deputed to take whatever message you have for him.'

Wroughton saw his curled lip, the sneer.

'Get me up to Gonsalves, if he wants to see this.' Theatrically, Wroughton held the file in front of the young man's spectacles.

'Wait here.'

He waved the file again, taunting with it, as the desk telephone was lifted.

'Excuse me, guys, bottom right of screen, wasn't that? We lost it.'

The serene voice of Oscar Golf broke into their headsets, the intervention from Langley.

'No, it's not there now. We've gone past… Did you see anything?

Bottom right of screen for four or five seconds.'

It was a little short of two hours since they had last heard from Oscar Golf. Marty had stiffened. It was like they were watched, tested, spied on. He saw Lizzy-Jo's mouth move as she swore under her breath.

'Our calculations give you fourteen minutes more time over your current box. Let's use the time, guys, by going back. How does that sound?'

He looked at Lizzy-Jo. She'd her tongue stuck out, like she was a kid in contempt of an adult. Then her forefinger waved across her lips – not a time to fight.

'I'll bring her back. We'll work back.'

Oscar Golf, lounging in a swivel chair in the darkened room at Langley, was not a target to pick for a scrap. Maybe Oscar Golf had six pairs of eyes alongside to help him. Marty grimaced at Lizzy-Jo and she shrugged. He'd seen nothing, bottom right of the screen, neither had she, and… He heard a thundering roar, piercing into his headset, billowing through the open door. Where he sat, he couldn't see the window of Ground Control, and the door was at the wrong angle. She leaned close, slipped his headset up off his ear and whispered that it was the transporter landing, their freedom bird.

'Oscar Golf, I am going into a figure eight, and let's hope we find what you think you saw.'

'Appreciate that. Oscar Golf, out.'

There was just sand on the screen – from top left to bottom right.

Red sand and yellow sand, ochre sand and gold sand, and there were sand hills, sand mountains and flat sand. The track was out of sight, too far to the east of the last map boxes they flew. Tiredness ached in Marty. The previous day, at the start of the last flight and before the weariness had settled on him, he would have resented any request to go back and look again. With the joystick, he banked Carnival Girl and swung her to starboard before the correction to port. Dust came in a storm through the Ground Control open door and he did not need Lizzy-Jo to tell him that the transporter had taxied off the runway and come on to the compacted dirt beside the compound gate.

The dust filled the Ground Control Centre, settled on his head and his shoulders and spread over the chart of map boxes. She choked.

He heard her gulp and then she had hold of his hand.

'Heh, Marty, see that? What are we looking at?'

Wroughton was led into Gonsalves' empire.

All the desks were deserted. All the screens in the open-plan flickered, but were not watched. He went past a conference annexe, and through the door saw briefcases dumped and files left open.