Gerald Seymour - Home Run

Duggie Williams brought her a drink and changed places with Maureen Foster to sit next to her.

"You must be half bored out of your knickers."

"I beg your pardon."

"How did Keeper get you to come along?"

"It was I that said we were coming."

"You must be off your pretty head."

"Perhaps I just wanted to have a look at you all."

"Then it's a bloody miracle you haven't run away already

… I'm Harlech."

"I know. I'm Ann."

Bill had started talking. Ann couldn't hear what he was saying, but David was leaning away from her to listen.

"We're not in the best of form."

She said drily, "I gathered."

"We've lost a nice juicy one."

"He told me a bit."

"We got fucked up – excuse me – your man, trouble with him is that he cares."

"Don't you?"

He had strong eyes. When she looked at Harlech then it was into his eyes. She had nowhere else to look. It was only from the side of her eye that she saw Bill's empty chair.

"Not a lot bothers me, that's because of where I used to work. I used to be at Heathrow…"

"So was David."

"… He was front of house… me, I was back stage. I was on the stuffers and swallowers drill. You know what that is? 'Course, you don't. Nobody tells a nice girl about swallowers and stuffers… I used to be on the duty that checks the daily in from Lagos – I never found anything else that the Nigerians were good at, but, Christ, they can stuff and swallow. Do you want to know all this? You do? Well, the women stuff the scag up their fannies, and the men stuff it up their arses, and they both swallow it. Are you with me?

They put it in condoms and they stuff it up and they swallow it down. We have a special block for the suspects, and that's where I used to work before I came to ID. We shove them in a cell, and we sit and watch them, and we feed them on good old baked beans, and we wait. God, do we wait… Has to go through, law of nature. Everything has to come out except from where the women stuff theirs, but that's a job for the ladies. You have to be like a hawk, watching them, and every time they go in then it's out with the plastic bag and on with the rubber gloves and time for a good old search around. They train by swallowing grapes, and they dip the condoms in syrup so they travel more comfortably, and they use something called Lomotil, because that's a binder. You know, once we had a flight in from Lagos and we pulled in thirteen, and we had every bog in action that we could lay our hands on. We were swamped, and just as well, because half of them were positive. When you've sat, hours and hours, watching guys crap, after that not a lot seems to bother you. Got me?"

"He doesn't tell me things like that."

"Complaining?"

She didn't answer. Bill was back, talking urgently into David's ear. She heard her man swear, quiet, then he turned to her.

"I'm sorry, I've got to go with Bill. It may take an hour or two. Duggie, will you look after Ann? Will you get her home?"

"You're joking." She didn't believe it.

Bill shrugged. He was standing at David's shoulder.

"I'm sorry, love, I'll see you when I do."

He was gone, and Bill was trailing after him. No, she didn't believe it.

" D o you like dancing?" Harlech asked.

The investigator reported to the Mullah.

A veteran in survival, the investigator had determined the necessity of reporting in person twice every day to the Mullah.

Twice every day he drove through the traffic jams to the expropriated villa where the Mullah held court. He held the cards in his hand, not as high cards as he had hoped, but cards of value. He had in those cells at Evin that were reserved for political prisoners of great sensitivity an engineer from Tabriz and a carpet merchant from Tehran.

He had a tail on an official of the Harbourmaster's office in Bandar Abbas, to see where the man would run, what else could be trawled.

He had the plan in his mind of the show trial at which confessions would be made. Confessions, their extraction and their presentation in court, were the great pride of the investigator. A confession was the closing of a book, it was the finishing of the weaving of a carpet, it was orderliness. The confessions of the engineer and the carpet merchant were near to being in place, and that of the official in the Harbourmaster's office would follow when he was ready to receive it.

On that evening, late, in the office of the Mullah, he reported on all these matters, and he received permission to continue the surveillance in Bandar Abbas. Later, sipping freshly pressed fruit juice, he talked of Charlie Eshraq. He was very frank, he kept back nothing.

"Mattie, I don't want to go on about this, not all night, but you are quite sure?"

"I'm getting very tired, Henry."

"The investigator was a professional, yes?"

"Old S A V A K man, knew what he was at."

"And it went on being pretty violent?"

"Henry, if you knew how ridiculous you sounded

…'pretty violent' for Christ's sake. If you've got any heavy duty flex in the garage here we'll see, if you like, if we can elaborate the distinctions. Violent, pretty violent, or we'll try twelve hours of continuous violence and see what that becomes. Or haven't we been through this all before…"

"Yes, Mattie, yes, we have… It's so important that we are absolutely clear on this. Your investigator is a SAVAK man, the worst of the breed, and violence was used against you, quite horrifying violence, on and on…"

"How many times do you have to be told, Henry? I did not name Charlie Eshraq."

"Easy, old chap."

"It is not easy to break out of Iran and then to come home to an inquisition."

"Quite right, point taken. Mattie, there were times that you fainted, other times when you were semi-conscious. When you were really groggy, could you have named him then?"

The room was shadowed and dingy. The light came from a ceiling triple, but one of the bulbs had popped early in the evening and George had stated that he had no replacements and would not be able to buy more bulbs until Monday. The furniture was old but lacking in quality, a Sotheby's man wouldn't have given the room a second glance, not as good a room as the dining room.

"When you're in a place like that, Henry, you cling to anything that's sacred. You hold on to your family, to your Service, your country, your God if you have one. Any damned thing that is important in your life you hold on to. When the pain's so bloody awful, the only things you can hold to are the kernels of your life. You have that feeling that if you broke, you would be giving them all that is sacred to you."

"I just have to be sure, that I understand you."

And it was such a damn shame… He thought that old Henry, tatty old Henry Carter who wouldn't have known a thumb screw from a bottle opener, might just be a better interrogator than the investigator in Tabriz.

•**

Park drove, and Parrish was beside him with the directions written on a sheet of paper. He'd asked where they were going, and Bill had said that the building was called Century House. He'd asked why they were going there, and Bill said it was because the Chief had told him to present himself with Keeper in tow. No point in any more questions, because Bill hadn't any more answers.

They came down the Albert Embankment, and the tower blocks loomed against the night skyline. There was only one block alive with light.

Parrish waved for Park to pull into the forecourt. The Chief Investigation Officer was on the steps, and looking at his watch, and the ACIO was beside him, and then coming forward to organize the parking space. They climbed from the car, and Park locked the doors. They walked towards the main entrance. He saw a small brass plate for Century House.