Gerald Seymour: Kingfisher

'But it's not as simple as that, is it, sir?'

'Of course it isn't. Quote me and I'll fire you, too damn right I will. Of course it isn't that simple. The only thing that amazes me is that more people haven't said so.'

What also surprised him was the degree, now that it was completed, that he had enjoyed handling the crisis. True it had not been a major one, but crises and even the little ones were welcomed when you sat in high office. He would miss the briefings, and the hurrying in the corridors and the ambassadors kicking their heels with impatience outside the door. If the opinion polls were correct in their assessment of the popularity of his party then his tenure of the Foreign Office was limited in the extreme.

He would remember these last two days. With affection.

For an hour now the bird had been still, motionless as a statue, perched on the dark oak root that curved out from the river bank over the clear, fast-flowing water.

Such a small body, With its disproportionate head and the winnowed brown bill that projected with benign aggression from the brilliant mass of the blue and green feathering of the head and back that in turn softened to the reddened brown of the breast. Patient and accepting no limit on the time it must spend before some unwary minnow or stickleback, held in an illusion of safety, might stray beneath the watching eyes.

When it dived it was with a flashing, sudden movement that was too fast for the sight of the old man to follow, leaving him only with the bareness of the root and the wrinkled circling of the water that would soon be lost in the constant eddying. Gone for a second, perhaps two, till the little lungs must have been fit to explode and then the supreme moment of triumph as it broke the water, seeming to float for a moment before thrashing angrily clear of the frail spray and arching up towards the hole that the old man had found many months earlier. That was the reason he came to this place. Mingled with the colours of the bird was the tiny, flapping silver fish, frantic in its death-throes; and they were gone, predator and victim, lost to sight under the lip of the bank that was its home and where he knew the fledgelings would be waiting. Most days he came to this spot, crawling on his hands and knees into the thicket that hid him from the kingfisher's view; only heavy rain made him shelter in his hut, or the needs of hunger and a hunting expedition far into the forest would keep him away, prevent him joining the pleasure of the bird as she provided for her little ones. He would not see her for some minutes now as she would break up the meal before consigning it to the hungry throats. Perhaps the male would visit

– that would be good reason for a further wait – a heavier, larger bird, its colours more complete and deeply accented, who would swoop low over the stream as he approached and call once in the shrill shriek that was the sign of his coming. The same sound that he had taught the young man, David, who was deep and serious and passionate in his beliefs of something that Timofey did not understand, and who needed the guns for his fulfilment.

It was five days now since David had come. Each day Timofey had remembered him and felt a bolt of loneliness when he thought of their farewell.

His ears were keen to the sound of approaching footsteps and when he first heard the breaking of twigs and the crackling of the parched leaf mould under the policeman's boots he had hoped that it heralded David's return. He waited for the call – silent, hidden, anxious. He had taught the boy well, till his imitation of the kingfisher was perfect But the barking of the dogs, frantic now with excitement, the scent regained from the hut, aroused him to the danger. Timofey was old, and though his senses were still keen agility of movement was long lost. It took him an age to scramble to his feet, more time to recognize the source and direction of the threat, longer to plot which way he should run. There were voices now, lively with pursuit, and ever closer the yapping of the hounds.

His hands were still scrabbling at the far bank of the stream when they came to the place where he had been concealed. Two dogs, large, well-fed, disciplined to attack and straining at their leashes. Four men, two of them dog handlers, the others carrying light machine-guns. All wearing the dun uniform of the Kiev militia. Stupidly, because the chance of escape no longer existed, Timofey tried to pull himself up the slippery and crumbling bank, something instinctive to so old a fugitive. Fighting upwards he fell, rose again and then subsided. Destroyed by the boy who had come, nullified when he had won Timofey's friendship, when he had taken the guns. All clear to the old man as the moss and earth filled his untended fingernails and his movements became more sluggish, more tired.

He did not know of Isaac. He had no way of conjuring in his mind the small hunched figure in a cell corner with the bruises refreshed and alive around his face who had denounced Timofey.

The information he had bartered would purchase Isaac a few more hours before they took him from his cell for the last time. A few more hours: that was the value of the old man's life.

Four bullets they fired at him. Three to buckle him in the water, a fourth to be certain the job was completed.

Deep in her hole in the river bank the kingfisher and her family waited for the screams to pass.

Half a day she stayed there before hunger overtook her fear and she emerged again into the slanted light of the late afternoon and tripped to her perch to wait and to watch. The water beneath her was stained where the main current had not cleansed it, and though she remained till the dusk the fish did not come again.