Gerald Seymour - The Untouchable

If it had not been for the snake he would not have seen the wire.

The wire did not have the lustred sheen of the snake's skin. It was coated in dirt. He followed the line it took. In places grass sprouted over it, and then it would reappear, then it was hidden again. He should not have looked for the end of the wire that ran at a height just above a man's shoelace knot. He knew he should have squinted his eyes shut, denied himself the sight of it, and stepped forward. The wire's line took him away to the left, past an old tree branch in which it was snagged, and then it was angled higher.

He could see the stake that held it up and its green painted body with the faded stencil markings that had a squat cluster of antennae points just below the height of a man's knee, with a ring above them to which the wire was fastened. The breath wheezed from his body… his knees went, and with them his bladder.

The urine steamed on Mister's leg as he went down. When he was on his hands and knees in the grass, he could not see it.

The last of the sun was above the hill's crest and the higher trees were webbed with it. The sky spread blood-reddened light on the valley, washed off it the brightness of the day.

He was broken. His head was on his knees and his fingers were over his eyes, but the tears came, and the urine flowed on his leg. Joey's voice sang out.

'God, Mister, you are a disappointment to me…

Not going to run? Is Christmas cancelled? What you going to do, sit there all night? There's going to be a lot of laughs round Stoke Newington and Dalston, Hackney, Hoxton, Harringay. You won't be able to hear yourself think up Green Lanes, with all the laughter… What's the next big plan?'

He sobbed, and the light failed around him. And the smell of the Eagle and the urine would be worse in the night and the wires would come closer to him, edge tighter around him.

'You know what I was going to do, Mister, if you'd run? I've a big dog here, an Alsatian. I was going to let you get close to the river – if you hadn't stepped on a mine – and I was going to send him after you. You might lose a leg with a mine but this brute's bad, you'd have lost your throat with him. What's to be done, Mister?'

He was mesmerized by the voice and the tears ran on his sun-blistered cheeks and the wind seemed colder on his back. He knew the fear.

'Come and get me.'

'Is that a joke, Mister, is that funny talk?'

'Come and get me out.'

'What? Walk in there?'

'Get me… I can't do another night, not here… Get me out.'

'Didn't your mummy ever teach you what to say?'

'Please… fucking get me o u t… Please… '

'Got to do better than that, Mister, a lot better.'

He cried into the growing darkness that hemmed in the sun's final light, 'I'm begging you – for charity's sake, for mercy's sake – help me. Please help me.'

' Is it over, Mister? Did I win and did you lose?'

' I lost, you won… It's over.'

The voice changed. The mocking sneer was replaced by a brusque rattle of instructions. 'You will sign a statement listing, in your own handwriting, every criminal offence you have committed since your release from HMP Pentonville… You will plead guilty at every subsequent trial you face… You will name every criminal associate… '

'Any fucking thing – but not another night out here.'

'Your word is your bond?'

'Trust me – and help me.'

'You are armed, Mister. Throw any firearm away from you.'

He took the PPK Walther from his belt. He swung his arm and hurled it high. He saw it against the ruddied glow before it fell against the darkness of the hill's slope.

' I did it.'

' I saw you do it, Mister. Strip off. I want all your clothes off you, and your socks and your shoes.

Everything. Then stand. Then I'll come and get you.'

'Thank you. Thank you, Cann.'

He tore off his jacket and his fingers fumbled with his tie. He ripped his shirt open and threw it at the grass, then the belt.

In the dropping light, Joey watched as Mister, out in the field, stood and kicked off his trousers.

He took the mobile phone from his belt and the battery from his pocket, married them, and punched the numbers.

He was tinny and distant in her ear. 'It's as if I've killed him, I have destroyed him. I know what I have done. To get there, Jen, I went down lower than him. I was more cruel, more brutal, more vicious. I sucked the strength out of him. He was untouchable, he did not know fear, he is now standing in a field and bending to take off his shoes and socks and then he will be quite naked – I told him to strip. He said, Jen, to me:

"Please." For what I've done, you wouldn't want to know me. Two days ago, he thrashed me, and I didn't cry out. He had a big meeting, I wrecked it. I brought him down, I peeled his men away from him. He went into a field. I am at the edge of the field. I have taunted him, laughed at him, I've brought the fear into him which he never had – a good person like you should have no time for me. You asked me, Jen, "How is it that people like that can have such power?" I've taken the power from him, I've exchanged it for fear. He's naked, he's in the palm of my hand… I don't have ideology, Jen, I am not serving a cause here, I'm not a crusader – it was about who was left standing, him or me, nothing more, nothing less. It's not because I'm good and he's evil. I am worse than him, have gone lower. It's like I'm contaminated, by him and what's around me… I have to go and get him, Jen, and I can't show fear, I have to bring him out. Where he is, Jen, it's a minefield… '

The rambling voice went, and she was left with only the tone's purr in her ear.

He was stripped, was bare. The wind was on his skin and it seemed to Mister to heal him, to soothe the burns and sponge off the sweat. He held out his hands at his sides and made a cross of himself.

The sun had gone, but left its fainter glow on the hill's crest, and the lights of the two villages shone distant and bright.

He saw the movement at the tree-line. Cann came for him, with the dog at his knee, to bring him out.

Dragan Kovac watched from his porch, and Husein Bekir from the log in front of his home. It was their valley, and was invaded by strangers. They had the right to watch.

He stepped over the yellow tape.

Joey started to walk towards Mister. He felt a bond with the dog. The dog had no fear and the weight of its body rippled against Joey's leg, and that was comfort. The dog gave him courage. He had asked: What would be his chance of selling off a mine? He had been told: It would be in God's hands. The dog's paws glided on the grass, but Joey stamped it down with each stride.

He knew everything of the man who stood ahead of him with the arms out: when he ate, when he showered, when he had sex, when he cleaned his shoes. He knew the cartwheel of his organization, the pitch of his voice, the gait of his walk, and the assets secreted away that made Mister first among equals.

Only Joey knew what had brought the fear to Mister's mind and had crushed him. At the Custom House, if they had seen Mister naked and holding out his arms in surrender, they would be launching the piss-up to end all binges. Joey alone owned the moment. He felt no elation, but a simple flat lack of satisfaction. No thrill, no triumph. He had gone to the end of the road, followed where it had led him, and the vista was empty.

He did not look down.

Joey reached the Eagle's body. He smelt it, and the dog sniffed at it. He swung to his left and started out on a wide half-circle that would bring him face to face with Mister. The dusk gathered around him. The dog, close to Joey, growled softly and bared its teeth as they skirted Mister's buttocks, then his hip, then his groin.