Gerald Seymour - The Untouchable

He had no spectacles. It would have been hard for him to read, but he had no books. His eyesight was sufficient for his needs. He did not recognize it but, perversely, his failing vision helped him. He saw that morning only the beauty of the valley, as if the war had passed it by. The track to the ford and beyond it was empty. Was the old fool going to be late? His preparations were dictated by a schedule. He sniffed, smelt the stewing rabbit.

He hurried inside. He stoked more wood into the stove. The stove, like him, was a survivor of the war.

When the Spanish soldiers had brought him back to his house, before they'd left him, they'd cleared bucketfuls of plaster rubble from its top and cleaned the hob. He went twice a week into the almost deserted village of Ljut with his bow saw and took his time to cut wood from fallen rafters, and wheeled it back in a barrow. Last week a soldier had brought an axe and had cut enough logs to supply his cooking needs for a month. The cats ran wild in the village.

They moved in packs among the dried-out ruins. He had studied their hunting habits as if it were a minor paramilitary police operation, had learned where the vats look the rabbits they killed. They were creatures of routine. The eating place, a charnel house of bones, was the tool shed at the back of the church. A cat caught a fine buck rabbit, held it screaming in its jaws, and proudly strutted with it to the shed. He'd waited the previous day in the shed's shadows, heard its death scream and the cat's proud yowl. He'd thrown a stone at the cat, had missed, but the rabbit had been dropped. He had taken it home, skinned and gutted it, and had hung it from a beam above his bed. The rabbit was now in the pot, and the fire burned well in the stove. He had only the potatoes that the Spanish troops brought him and peas from packets to stew with it. It would not be a meal for an emperor, but a meal fit for a true friend, an old fool. He looked at his watch. Husein Bekir was twenty-seven minutes late.

He heard the movement outside, and the bark of the dog. He stood up, gained the stature of a retired police sergeant and went to the door, ready to chide his guest.

It was the daughter, the widow of the criminal, the mother of the child. She had come, she said, to tell him that her father had a chill. She thought he had been out too long, too late, two nights before, with a goat and a sickly kid. It was not serious but her father had taken to his bed. He saw the way she scented, in envy, the stewing rabbit. She was wan-coloured, worried.

Dragan Kovac prided himself on understanding the mentality of men, most certainly the mind of Husein Bekir. He thought it was more about the fields, and the mines that lay in them. There was, perhaps, a chill, but there would also be a reluctance to walk to the ford and wade across it, then to walk up the track past the grazing ground where there were no cattle and the arable ground that had not been ploughed and sown, and past the vineyard where the weeds overwhelmed the vines.

He gave her the steaming pot. He said, and hoped that the message would be carried back, that Husein Bekir should come as soon as he was fit enough, and that he should bring her son, and that together he and his friend should teach the child the mysteries of their game. She nodded.

Dragan Kovac put away the chess pieces, folded the board, and carried the table inside. The sun rose and shimmered on the valley, and the flowers.

'Did I wake you, Joey? Very sorry. It's Gough. Where am I? I am crossing Kingston bridge, then it's Hampton Wick, then it's Teddington and my bed. I've spoken to Jennifer, she's fine, very supportive. I have arranged round-the-clock protection for her, but discreet. She won't see it. Don't worry on her behalf…

I'm sure you were worried but you've no cause to be. I need you there, Joey. I want you on his back. I want him squeezed. What I'm looking for, Joey, is mistakes, big ones, the ones that nail him.'

The black Mercedes dropped Mister at the door of the Holiday Inn. They were on the settee seats of the atrium bar, close to each other. He saw that they had waited up for his return.

He had drunk nothing during the evening, was cold sober. There were beer bottles in front of Atkins and Soft-drink cans on the table in front of the Eagle.

He walked towards them. They stood. He recognized the signs of crisis. He didn't hurry as he approached them, because that would have shown doubt or weakness. When he was close to them he smiled. The Eagle didn't meet his eye, but Atkins was flushed and his fingers tugged and pinched at the hem of his trouser pocket. Mister knew that the difficulty, wherever it lay, was with Atkins. Divide the opposition, then control it. It was what he had learned from childhood.

He grinned at the Eagle. 'All right, then? You didn't have to sit up for me.'

Through a sickly smile, 'Yes, all right, Mister. You had a good evening?'

'An acceptable evening, making bridges we can walk over… What's up, Atkins?'

'We were talking… '

The Eagle shrugged. Message clear. Atkins had been talking and the Eagle had been listening. They were already divided, he knew it.

'What were you talking about, Atkins?'

It came in a torrent. 'About being here. How long are we here? What we're doing here, that was what we were talking about. How long and what… And about attempted murder… '

'I'm listening, Atkins, but you're not making much sense to me. Where's all this leading?'

'Quit. It's time we quit.'

'Do you agree, Eagle, that it's time we quit? No?

Lost your voice? Come on, Eagle, I always listen to you. Anything legal, and I'm all ears. Don't I listen to you, Eagle? Nothing to say?'

He used sharp, staccato, harsh questions to beat on the Eagle. Always worked, always made him cringe.

He could bully the Eagle, like kicking a dog and knowing it always came back to whimper at his heel.

He'd his beaded gaze on the Eagle, unwavering.

He turned in sweetness to Atkins. 'Things are bothering you, my friend. I don't like that. I like things in the open. Take your time.'

Mister hadn't heard it before, a croak in Atkins's voice. They'd have talked it over at dinner, wouldn't they? He twisted on the settee, gave Atkins his full attention and the Eagle was ignored, as if he was of no importance.

'I came to do a job, but you didn't say the job was murder – and those people killed Dubbs. You don't trust that sort, not an inch.'

'The point's made, Atkins. I think I know that – and I don't do job descriptions. You know that. We see an opportunity and we move. We see an obstacle and we dismantle it.'

'I didn't come for this. I want out.'

'Fair's fair. I hear you.'

'It's not my game.'

He reached out. The expression set on his face was of concern. The appearance was of. 1 sympathy, genuine. It was a little gesture, not the thing grown men did, but he reached out his hand, look Atkins's in his, and held it gently.

'Right, it's out of the system. You won't mind if I say something?'

'My mind's made up – I'm quitting.'

'Yes, yes… You see, Atkins, you won't find a man in London who'd call himself bigger than me. I'm top of the heap. I'm the one they look to. Why's that? It's because I have ambition. No backwaters for me. I'm at the top, in the fast lane. How am I there? Because I choose men of quality. Plenty of people want to work for me. Silly to think about it, but if I advertised a position, working for me, then the queue would stretch round the corner. Plenty of people who could organize hardware for me. I'm only interested in the best, got me? The best. Only quality interests me.

Looking for the best, for quality, I asked you to accept my offer of employment… Does everything, always, go to plan? Course it doesn't. It screws up, falls on its face. The reason, most times, it works out is that I have the best men alongside me, quality men – not gorillas, but men of intelligence. I'm not afraid to hold my hands up when I'm wrong. I think I owe you an apology, Atkins. Why? I've taken you for granted. I haven't kept you in the picture. That's remiss of me.