Gerald Seymour - The Untouchable

On the pavement, Atkins asked, 'If I was to jump off the treadmill, what would I get?'

'Mud on your face. If I were representing you, I'd urge you to plead. Seven years to ten years. But I wouldn't be representing you, I'd be beside you and looking at twelve to fifteen. That's why we don't jump.'

The talk was in the bedroom when the visitors came, not the living room And after they'd gone, Maggie's frustration grew because the talk stayed in the bedroom. The giggles. gasps, and the whine of the springs were enough to activate the microphone in the living room's telephone, but the talk was too muffled, too dominated by the sounds of the loving and the bed's heaving for her to comprehend what was said. She'd given the earphones to Frank and his expression had screwed into a sneer. He'd passed the earphones to each of the Sreb Four. Frank was closest to her, in the rented room, and sometimes his hand rested on her hip. She knew now the names of each of the survivors of the Srebienica massacre, Salko and Ante, Muhsin and Fahro. They'd have seen Frank's hand on her hip, but they showed no sign of it. being with them, feeling the pressure of his hand, softened the frustration

… Then the telephone bell. Then the padding of bare feet. Her pencil was poised.

She scribbled,

Da?

Serif?

Da.

(Russian language) It is Nikki, I come tomorrow, the agreed schedule.

(Russian language) OK, Nikki, I meet you. I take you.

(Russian language) It is all OK?

(Russian language) All OK.

The call was cut. She heard the feet pad away, then the springs sang, and there was distant laughter.

Maggie Bolton was fluent in Russian. She had an Italian coming to a meeting, and a Russian, but she did not yet know the location of the meeting. Quite deliberately, she took Frank's hand from her hip and laid it on her thigh.

The lights had been in the mirror through Ustikolina, and when they'd gone by the nowhere turning to the bombed bridge of Foca, on the open roads before and after Milievina, and when they climbed on the ice surface for the gorge that led to Tvorno. Always the lights were with them, holding their intensity because the distance between them did not grow and did not close.

Each time Mister looked in the mirror he saw the lights of the blue van.

She did not speak. The road and its ice held her attention. She did not hold his hand any longer. She had the wheel and the gearstick and she searched ahead for the longer thicker stretches of ice. Water ran down the rock faces beside the road and spilled onto the tarmac.

Always the lights were with him, and with the mirror.

'Would you stop, please?'

'What?'

'Sorry – Monika, could you stop, please?'

'What for?'

' I am just asking you to stop, please.'

'Ah, I understand. You want aa pee stop. You can say so.'

'Please stop.'

Very gently, not using, the foot brake but going down through her gears, she stopped. He stepped out.

His feet slipped and he steadied himself against the vehicle.

The headlights shone hard at him, and Mister walked towards the lights. If the Secretary of State had not been at the hotel, if there had not been a metal detector arch in the hotel lobby, if his pistol had not been left in the Mitsubishi, he would have had the weapon in his hand. The lights had stopped moving, and the interior lit as the door was opened. Cann came forward and stood in black silhouette in front of the lights The little bastard faced him. Mister blinked as he came closer to the lights. If he had had the weapon in his hand he would have used it. There was hate in his heart Men he had not hated were entombed in concrete foundations, were buried in Epping, were weighted on the sea bed, or walked on sticks. Cann stood ahead of the lights, his body diminished by their size

'Got a problem, Mister?'

He couldn't see the mouth, but light caught the rims of the big spectacles.

'What's a nice girl like that doing with a piece of shit like you?'

He walked through the question. Mister faced his persecutor. He towered over the shadowy shape in front of him. The lights blazed in his face, made tears in his eyes.

'Not going to have a weep on me, are you, Mister?'

Mister lashed out. Right fist, low, short arm punch.

The fist buried itself in the slight stomach. The body jack-knifed, would have fallen if the fist hadn't caugt the coat collar. He dragged Cann round the side of the blue van, to the back of it. He threw Cann against the doors, then punched him again, first the solar plexus, and as the head dropped, the upper-cut to the jaw. Cann went down. Mister kicked him. Kept kicking him. Nearly fell on the ice. Should have had heavier shoes, should have had the boots the Cards wore when they went out for a kicking, with lead or iron caps. He reached down, found the coat, pulled the body up. No resistance. Arms trying to protect the upper body, hands over the face. He punched until his hands hurt, put Cann down, then kicked until his toes hurt in his handmade shoes. It was hard for Mister to see the small figure on the road behind the van.

He walked away.

The voice was small behind him. 'That was a mistake, Mister, a mistake.'

Mister went back to the van. She said, laughing, that it was a long pee stop. His knuckles bled and he hid them from her.

Joey reached his room. He knew she was back. Ante was in the lobby and Muhsin lounged on the landing near her door. He'd been off the road twice, but he'd been lucky: a tractor had pushed him back from the drift once and a pick-up had towed him clear the second time. He'd gone twice into the snow because his spectacles' arms were broken and when the frame had fallen from his nose he'd swerved. There wasn't a part of his body that wasn't in pain.

He went into the bathroom. He held the spectacles, and his hand shook. The mirror showed him his face

– blood, scratches, rising wels. He managed his coat, shirt and vest, but the pain in his stomach wouldn't allow him to bend and unfasten the laces of his trainers, He pushed his trousers down, and his underpants, to his ankles. He stood in the shower, clinging lo the chrome support. Without it he would have collapsed The water ran over him and drenched his trousers, pants, socks and puddled in his trainers.

He heard the room door open.

'You're back?'

'Yes.'

'A good day?'

'A useful day,' Joey croaked.

'I needed a new pair of knickers and clean tights.'

'Good'

There must have been a sob in his voice. He held tight to the support She was in the bathroom doorway. The curtain wasn't drawn. She was looking at him. The water ran in rivers across his spectacles.

'What happened to you?'

Through the lenses her face was blurred. He didn't know whether she cared, or not. He grimaced, but that hurt his mouth, his jawbone, his cheeks and his brain.

'I walked into a door.'

'Did the door have boots and fists, or just boots?'

'If the door had had a gun I think it might have been rather more serious.'

She came into the bathroom and knelt beside the shower. The waler splashed from his body onto her.

'Packer?'

He nodded.

She untied his trainer laces and pulled them off his feet, then the sodden socks, then his underpants and his trousers, and threw each of them into the bath, the water had plastered her careful hair and had made streams of her more careful makeup. She sat on the bath edge, pulled a towel off the rack and rubbed her hair and face.

'You're not the world's most beautiful sight – is there blood in your urine?'

'Don't know.'

'Are you going to live?'

' I hope so.'

'There's a Russian coming.'

'Coming where?'

'Coming for a meeting, for tomorrow's meeting.'

'Where's it to be?'

' I don't have the location… Clean tights don't matter, not like knickers. I've got to get back. Do you want a doctor?'