Gerald Seymour - The Untouchable

You want out because you don't think you're valued

… You are, sincerely you are. Who was the last person to tell you that you were quality, the best? Your father?'

He held Atkins's hand and his thumb massaged the knuckle. His voice was pitched low and Atkins had to lean forward to hear him. He knew about all the people he employed, and their families. There was a brigadier, retired, down in Wiltshire who had received from the Queen in his soldiering days a Distinguished Service Order and a Military Cross. From what Mister had learned, the brigadier thought worthless the son who had been bumped out of the army in disgrace.

He knew Atkins hadn't been home last Christmas. If he skipped going home at Christmas then it was to save himself from supercilious insult. He held the hand and saw the head shaken glumly.

'It's what I'm telling you, you're quality and the best. I want you beside me. I value you, Atkins.

Everything's going to be all right, I promise. Just a few hiccups, but it'll all work out. Anything you want to say?'

'No, Mister, nothing.'

'No more talk of quitting?'

'None.'

'Well said. Said by a man I can lean on, a man I'd depend on. You want to go and get some sleep. That hand… ' Mister loosed it. '. .. I'd put my life in that hand and know it's safe.'

He watched Atkins shamble away to the lift.

He leaned further across the table. Without warning, with a short-range jab, he punched the Eagle's upper arm, aimed at the flab where it would hurt. He laughed, as if that were his idea of amusement.

'Snivelling little rat… Tell me it wasn't your idea, Eagle, didn't prime him to it. No, no… '

'You did well, Mister,' the Eagle said. 'But, then, you always do.'

He told the Eagle about his dinner, what he'd learned and what he'd agreed to. He said where he would be early in the morning, and where he would be for the day, and what he wanted from the Eagle and Atkins while he was away.

'Seems good to me, Mister.'

They ambled towards the lift and his arm draped over the Eagle's shoulder. 'I reckon we're rolling.'

For Mister the day started well.

There was a clear sky over him with a dipping quarter-moon. The sun wasn't yet up over the rooftops of the city but a sheen of its coming light slipped into the side-street where he stood. His position, half in the doorway of a steel-shuttered boutique, gave him a useful view of the square and its shrub bushes draped with wind-blown litter, the hotel's steps, the interior foyer and the reception desk.

He had the timetable of the flights. He had risen early and expected to be rewarded for it. He saw them come into the foyer together, and go to the desk. He understood the way they worked, operated, at the Church.

They backed off. It was the difference between him and them. There would have been a meeting, and fed into the meeting would have been options – to stay and reinforce or to back off. He felt supreme.

She carried a lightweight case out of the foyer and down the hotel's steps. The young man, Cann, followed her, loaded with a heavy silvery metal case and a smaller overnight sports bag. She didn't look like anyone from the Church he'd seen before – too petite, too smart – and not police either. She would have been the bug e x p e r t… but he'd seen her off. She turned on the pavement and walked towards the far end of the hotel building, Cann trailing behind her.

Under a street-lamp, Mister saw their faces. Hers was tight, his was depressed and lowered. They disappeared from his view, went round the corner of the hotel's block. Mister waited. He had seen enough, but his innate care and sense of caution ruled him.

An old blue van came fast from the side of the hotel and accelerated past the steps to the foyer, then braked noisily at the traffic lights. She was driving. A lesser man than himself would have whistled and waved to them, or given them the finger. They were gone. He looked down at his watch to make the quick calculation. They were on schedule for the flight out.

There was a bounce in his stride when he left the side-street. It would be a good day for him.

She'd held her silence all the way down the old Snipers' Alley, past the destroyed newspaper building, past the ruins of what had been the front line protecting the airport corridor, and past the camp of the French soldiers. She'd said nothing and Joey hadn't broken into her mood.

She parked, switched off the engine, then tossed him the keys.

'Good luck,' she said.

'I'll see you in.'

'You don't have to – I'm capable of catching, on my own, an airline flight.'

'I'll carry your case.'

She pouted. 'The gentleman to the last.'

Not that Joey had seen many but he thought it was like any early-morning airport anywhere. She took her place in the check-in queue. In front and behind them were the personnel of the international community. There was a buzz and a rippling of jokes in a mess of languages. They were getting out, they were getting shot of the place for ever, or had the lesser escape of a week's leave. Policemen, soldiers, Red Cross workers, United Nations officials, they all let the staff on the check-in know how they felt about a reservation on the silver freedom bird. Maggie Bolton wasn't a part of them. She was severe, cold, as if that were her protection. The laughter rang around her, over her. When she was one place short of the front of the queue, she turned to Joey. She didn't speak but pointed to her ticket, her eyes asking the question: was he coming? He shook his head. She knew nothing of the clamour of his bedside telephone. What I'm looking for, Joey, is mistakes, big ones, the ones that nail him. It had been a long time, many clocks' chimes disturbing the night quiet, before he had slept again.

Maggie gazed at him, as if he were far away, then jabbed her elbow into his ribcage.

'Right, that's it, that's me on board.'

Both of her bags would go with her in the cabin.

She left the check-in and started to walk towards the departure doors, let him carry the heavier bug case.

'What happens when you get back?' Joey asked.

'Is that supposed to be bloody sarcastic?'

'It's merely a simple question, meant to be polite.'

She paused at the doors and stood against the flow.

'Into Heathrow about eleven thirty, if the Zagreb connection works. A car to meet me and take me into London – not because I'm important but because of the bag. A debrief – if they ask me why you didn't travel, I'll say you were waiting for the dry-cleaning to come back. Don't worry, I won't shop you.'

Joey said softly, 'My instructions are to stay, carry on without you, as best I can.'

Her composure broke. 'What? That is worse than bloody stupid.'

'And when you've had your debrief?'

'Check the bug into the workshop, see if it's past help. Go home. Look at the post, ring my mother. The usual. Then put my feet up. Then

… We all fail, you know. We don't brood about it. Learn to accept failure.'

'Have a good flight.'

She swivelled away from him, joined the flow and went through the doors.

'It's a tip,' Atkins said.

'The right road, the right number.'

'Can't be r i g h t… '

'It's what Mister said,' the Eagle muttered. 'Are you going to whinge, or are you going to do what he told you to do?'

'You bastard.'

'Eating from his hand. A couple of little compliments – God, you come cheap.'

Atkins flushed.

They walked towards the half-intact, half-destroyed house. Where his parents were, down in Wiltshire, a dry cow or a useless lame gelding wouldn't have been kept in such a place. This building was lived in. Where the stumped rafters were lowest from the angle of the roof, what was left of it, a washing-line was suspended and it reached to the bottom branch of a bare tree. On the line, drying in the sunshine, were a young woman's flimsy pieces of underwear, and mixed with them was a ragged assortment of long baggy pants, thick vests, heavy check shirts and the darned socks of an old man.