Gerald Seymour - Home Run

Carter wriggled in his shirt. He had not brought enough shirts to last him and he had had to entrust his dirty ones to Mrs Ferguson, and the woman used too much starch. The shirt was uncomfortable against his skin. Worse, the summer had come at last and even with the lounge curtains half drawn the room still sweltered, and Henry boiled unhappily in his three-piece suit and stiff shirt.

"Your investigator, Mattie, your torturer, what was he looking for in general?"

"They wanted to know why I was in the region, what was my brief."

"And what did you tell them?"

"I told them that I was an archaeologist."

"Of course."

"You stick to your cover story, it's all you have to hang on to."

"And you're not believed?"

"Right, I'm not believed, but you have to stick to your cover, whatever the holes are in it. And I was never going to be believed. The interrogator was an old SAVAK hand and he had met me years ago in Tehran. He knew exactly who I was. Called me Furniss the first time I was sat down in front of him. They caught a BBC bulletin saying that Dr Owens was missing. He made fun of that."

"On that day you still hadn't abandoned your cover?"

"Do you understand anything? You are alone, you are beyond help. If you give up your cover story then you are finished."

"They wanted to know your mission in the region, and what else were they fishing for?"

"Names of agents."

"They knew you were in the region, and they knew your identity.. .. What did they know of the identity of the agents?"

"They didn't have the names."

"Did they have anything on them?"

"If they did they didn't give me any hint of it."

Henry said quietly, "You gave them what they wanted, but not the name of Charlie Eshraq."

He saw the head go down. He did not know how long it would take. It might take the rest of the day, and it might take the rest of the week. But Mattie had dropped his head.

"How many sessions, Mattie?"

"Plenty." "

"Torture sessions, Mattie, how many?"

"Six, seven – they were whole days."

"Whole days of torture, and in essence the questions were the same?"

"What I was doing in the region, and the names of the agents."

"I'm very admiring of you, Mattie, that you were tortured day after day, that the questions were over such a small area range, and that you held the cover story so long, very admiring.

Did you consider, Mattie, telling them a little about Charlie Eshraq?"

"Of course you consider it."

"Because the pain is so great?"

"I hoped the names of the field agents would be enough."

"You'll have to talk me through this… You are in great pain. You are the subject of the most vicious and degrading treatment. The questions are asked again and again because they don't believe you have named all the agents… What do you say?"

"You stay with your story."

"Damn difficult, Mattie."

"You have no choice."

"Through the kickings, beatings, faintings – through a mock execution?"

Henry made a note on the pad that rested on his knee. He saw that Mattie watched him. He saw the trickle of relief on the man's face. Of course he was relieved. He saw his inquisitor make a note on his pad and he would have assumed that Carter made the note because he was satisfied with the answer. And the assumption was incorrect. Henry noted on his pad that he must ring Century for more clothes for Mattie. There was always a stock of clothes held there for visitors. There was a wardrobe full of slacks and jackets and jerseys and shirts and underwear and socks, assorted styles and shapes. Even shoes.

Mattie would need more clothes because he was trapped in a lie, and the debrief would go on until the lie was disowned.

"I think you are a very gentle man, Mattie."

"What does that mean?"

"I think that you care about people over whom you exercise control."

"I hope I do."

There was a sad smile on Carter's face. He would have been deeply and sincerely upset to have had Mattie believe that he took pleasure from his work.

"Mattie, when you left the kids on the mountain, the kids who lifted you up when you were finished, shared their food with you, and so on, that must have hurt."

"Obviously."

"Super kids, weren't they? Great kids, and they helped you when you were at your weakest."

Mattie shouted, "What did you want me to do?"

"You didn't argue their case. You told me that. You walked away from them and you sorted yourself out with the officer."

"I did try. But it's true I didn't upset the applecart as far as to get pushed back up the hill myself. My first priority, my duty as I saw it, was to get myself back to London."

"That's a heavy cross, that sort of duty… "

"You weren't there, Henry bloody Carter… you weren't there, you can never know."

The sun played on the windows and the distortions of the old glass were highlighted, and the brilliance of the rare sunshine showed up the dirt dust on the panes. If George, if the handyman, were to hold his job, then it was about time the idle wretch started to get round the windows with a bucket of warm water and a pocket full of rags. Carter said, "My assessment, Mattie, and this is not meant as a criticism, is that you were looking to save yourself… Hear me out…

Saving yourself was pretty important to you. Saving yourself was more important to you than speaking up for those kids who had carried you to the border."

The hoarse rasp in Mattie's voice. "One minute you want me to hang on long enough in the victim's chair and get every bone in my body broken, fingernails tugged out, all that, and the next minute you want me to have got myself booted back across the border."

"I want to know what you would have done to save yourself from the pain of torture."

"Why don't you refresh your memory with a glance at my medical report? Or would you like me to take my socks off?"

"I need to know if you named Eshraq to save yourself from the pain of torture."

"I might have named them all the minute the interrogation began."

"No call for that, Mattie… " There was a grimace from Carter, as if he had been personally wounded. "… When I was down here, must have been a couple of years back, there was an old croquet set in the cellar. I've told that lazy blighter to mow a bit of the lawn. Would you fancy a game of croquet, Mattie, after we've had our lunch?

… To save yourself, your own admission, you let those kids be herded to a firing party.

What would you have done to save yourself from the pain of torture?"

"I've told you."

"Of course… Eshraq's going back over, very soon."

They went to their lunch, and through the open windows there was the coughing drone of the old cylinder mower out on the lawn, and the pandemonium of the dog at George's heels.

The route of the lorry had been through Calais, Munich, Salzburg, Belgrade, and then the poor roads of Bulgaria.

Nineteen hundred miles in all, and a run of 90 hours. Sometimes the driver worried about the tachograph, sometimes his employer took care of his lorries and paid him extra money for hammering across Europe. There was the potential that the tachograph would be examined at a border post, but that potential was slight, and the driver, with extra funding, could live with that slight potential. The driver was skilled at negotiating the overland Customs point at Aziziye. It had been his habit for years to telephone ahead from Bulgaria to his friend at the Customs at Aziziye, to warn of his arrival. The driver called the Customs officer his friend, to his face, but in fact had similar friends at most of the entry points to European countries where he might be ending his journey and requiring Customs clearance. The bribe that was given to the Customs officer at Aziziye was not so much to prevent search of the containers on the lorry and its trailer, more to ensure a smooth passage for the cargo. A present, a gift, for the Customs officer was an essential part of any swift movement of goods. His vehicle was well known at the Aziziye crossing point. There was no reason for him to attract attention, and with the gift to his friend he ensured speed. It was a healthy arrangement, and paid for on this occasion by a carton of Marlboro cigarettes, a Seiko watch, and an envelope of US dollar bills.