Gerald Seymour - The Dealer and the Dead

He had forgotten his yearning to be loved by the fox. He stood, then walked to the animal and took hold of its tail, above where the mange infected it. He threw it hard and high, heard the body break through the branches and then the splash.

It had tried to lead him into the mines.

The sun was higher and beat on him. Far down a track that ran off through the corn he could see the movement of men and women, but they were hazed and indistinct. Sweat ran on him, and was in his eyes. It was the path, where the movement was, that his target would take.

He came off the road and ahead of him was the small, squat pillbox. In front of the pillbox was the shrine with the painted statuette of the Virgin and behind it the pole. The flag fluttered dismally in the heat.

Harvey Gillot crested a small hill, dirt and dust skidding out from under his feet, and realised there had been no rain for many weeks: the ground was baked dry. He passed the flag, then the shrine, and assumed it to have been built as a memorial to those who had died using the Cornfield Road. On the pillbox he could see the marks of war and the exposed lengths of steel wire on to which the concrete had been poured long ago. The ground in front of the shrine was covered with white chippings and weeds grew freely among them. He wondered why – if the past lived so strong – a man or a woman did not come here with a hoe and tidy it. Then the flag, the pillbox and the shrine were behind him.

From the top of the slope, he looked forward. To his left, distant, was the water tower, which peeped above the corn crop. To his right, nearer, was a farmhouse among mature fruit trees. There was scaffolding on one of the walls as if an attempt was made to move on from the past. Ahead was an expanse of fields, corn and sunflowers, and above the corn, chimneys that were difficult to focus on in the bright sunlight. In places, between the corn stems, he glimpsed red-tiled roofs. It was the village that had paid him.

It was why he was there.

No reason to mess around. Time to step out and confront it. ‘It’ was a gun, a balaclava, a hammer blow on his spine, then repeated. Could have hidden and flinched at his own shadow. Harvey Gillot started his walk.

The plastic bag, in his right hand, had little weight. The slight wind that blew on the open plain and was sucked down the path riffled it, making it flap against his leg. He wore a pair of creased lightweight trousers, should have been washed and pressed, and the shirt had been on his back since he had left the island. He was unshaven, which didn’t bother him. He had soft trainers on – he would have chosen them for a quiet day on the patio with his mobile for company. He hadn’t tidied his hair. He had dressed fast, moving on tiptoe around the hotel room, hadn’t showered or washed or swilled his teeth, and had looked often at her, fully dressed, sleeping well, her face calm. He hadn’t woken her. He had written the note, had done the smile – the rueful one – then gone out of the door and closed it with care.

He murmured, ‘Well, Mr Lieberman, they say that if you’re stuck in a pit it’s best to stop digging, so I’ve dumped the shovel. I’m walking because your good chum, Mr Arbuthnot, offered that piece of advice. Would be grateful, Mr Lieberman, if you’d watch my back…’ Could have done with his dark glasses. It looked a long walk and he thought it would take him near to the red-tiled roofs, the jutting chimneys and maybe skirt a tree-line, but everything was indistinct: the light reflected up from the path and seemed to gouge at his eyes. He hadn’t gone far yet, and the path stretched ahead, the corn grew high, and a car door slammed, behind him, faint.

It would have slammed on the road near to the flag, the pillbox and the shrine.

The sound of the slam carried well and there was no noise on the path, other than that of leaves moving and songbirds. Up higher a buzzard soared – should have had his dog with him. If it had been a choice between the dark glasses to protect his eyes or the dog, head beside his knee, he would have chosen the dog. Had the dog noticed he’d gone? Always made a fuss when he came back, but he wouldn’t have bet good money on the dog’s loyalty if it were just a walk that was on offer. The dog would follow the food. She gave it food and it might turn down the chance of a walk in a cornfield that led to a village, a grave and… He heard the stamp of feet, running behind him. He quickened his step, thought of the gun, the balaclava. He didn’t know whether he should walk faster, trot, jog or sprint. The tread closed on him. Gillot didn’t want to turn. He could picture the slight, spare-shouldered shape of the man and thought, with that build, the man would be close enough to him to have the right range for a handgun. Twenty feet, a difficult shot; ten feet, a reasonable shot; five feet, certainty. Couldn’t stop or turn, and the sweat ran on his back. The wind eddied in the bullet holes of his shirt and cooled the wet on his skin.

‘For God’s sake, Mr Gillot, can you just slow down?’

Gillot shouted at the corn on either side of the path: ‘Go away.’

‘Can’t.’ The man heaved, panted, and the footfall thudded closer.

Gillot stopped, turned. He stood his full height and tried to claw together authority. He and spoke with a harsh growl: ‘Words of one syllable… Get lost.’

The sergeant was in front of him, dressed in a suit, collar buttoned, tie knotted. The polished shoes were now dust-coated, his hair was wrecked and the sweat ran in rivulets off his forehead. A gasp. ‘Can’t.’

‘I don’t want you.’

‘Put frankly, Mr Gillot, there’s a thousand places I’d rather be.’

‘Be there then, any of them.’ Harvey Gillot turned. No smile and no shrug. He did it like a dismissal – told the lamb to stop trailing and get back to its own field and flock. He walked, stretched his stride.

‘Can’t.’ He was followed.

‘Repetitive, boring. Get a handle on it. I have to do this on my own.’ He thought that reasonable. Only an idiot wouldn’t understand that the business of the day was personal to him. They were in, now, an avenue of corn that was densely sown and made a wall to either side of them. A man – a devil, a killer, a bastard – could be two yards into the corn and there would be no warning of his presence. He would only have to extend an arm and aim and…

The voice bored back at him, lapped at his shoulder. ‘Sorry. Whatever your personal preferences, Mr Gillot, I’m not able to turn away from you. It’s the job.’

‘Get behind me. Don’t crowd me,’ Gillot said quietly. He wanted this argument dead – wanted to know what was ahead of him and round the twist in the path, wanted to know what was beside him and two paces into the close corn.

‘Behind you, yes, but with you.’

He thought they played with words. To Gillot, ‘behind’ was fifty paces back and detached, merely there to observe, far enough away not to distract him from his own survival chances. To Gillot, ‘with you’ was a couple of steps off his shoulder and alongside him, too near to give him a cat in hell’s chance. He’d reckoned he’d solved a problem and had had it thrown straight and hard into his face. The sun beat into his eyes and the sweat stung there. Temper broke.

‘Are you looking for a fucking medal?’

‘That’s insulting.’

‘Get off your high horse, Sergeant, and stop moralising.’

‘It’s called duty of bloody care.’

He let his shoulders heave with derision, but the man hung in there. At school there had been kids who fancied cross-country running was a joy – panting and heaving and throwing up – and the teacher said that the lead kid had to drop the chasers or he’d not bloody win. He hadn’t dropped Roscoe.