Gerald Seymour - Heart of Danger

Penn went round the bed and he stepped over Ham's legs.

The knock was repeated, impatiently. He opened the door of the hotel room.

Penn rocked.

She peered into the gloom. Late morning, closing on midday, and the curtains of the room were not drawn back. Mary peered past the shadow-dark figure that rocked in front of her. Yes, she had expected surprise, but the man could hardly stand, and the light from behind her in the corridor seemed to dazzle his eyes and he could not focus on her. She came into the room and with her heel she nudged the door back shut behind her. Only the light now from the bathroom, and the shadow-dark figure was backing away from her, away from the narrow strip of light from the bathroom. She came past the door and into the room. The smell in the room was foul, quite defeating the eau de toilette scent that she had sprayed at her throat and wrists in the taxi from the airport. On the plane and in the taxi from the airport, she had rehearsed what she would say to him, how she would be cool but goading, and what she had rehearsed was thrown from her mind. If she had wanted to she could not have controlled it, the sharp spasm of her anger.

"Good morning, Mr. Penn…"

No reply from him, and he was stumbling back further from the bathroom light as if to hide in the grey gloom of the room.

'… How are we, Mr. Penn?"

Just a growl of a response.

She was going forward into the centre of the room, coming closer to the bed that he skirted when she saw his case on the bed and the shape of the woman on the bed. The blouse of the woman was unbuttoned halfway down to her navel and she could see the sexless strength of the woman's brassiere and the white skin. "A little end-of-term party, Mr. Penn? Got demob happy, did we, Mr. Penn? Hit the bottle, did we, Mr. Penn…? The bottle and a bit of skirt, Mr. Penn?" "It's not what…" "What I think? You wouldn't have the faintest idea what I think, Mr. Penn. If you had had an idea then you would not have ignored my telephone calls to this hotel. You would not have bloody well abandoned me." "You wouldn't know…" "What it was like? Just a silly woman, Mr. Penn? A silly woman incapable of understanding? A woman to be fobbed off with a two-page fax?" The growl spluttered in his throat. She saw the gleam of his teeth and his words came haltingly. "She wasn't my daughter." "What the hell does that mean?" "She wasn't my daughter, and if she had been my daughter then she would not have been bad-mouthed to every stranger I could get my claws on." She laughed, shrill. "We make judgements now, do we, Mr. Penn? We know more than a mother does about her daughter, do we, Mr. Penn? Exactly what I need, wonderful…" And she was following him through the grey gloom of the room, and the woman on the bed stirred. He said to her, and the life had gone from his voice, and there was only a tiredness, "If it was just anger then you wouldn't have come, if it had just been anger then you would have stayed away. You came because of the guilt…" "Don't lecture me." "Because of the guilt, because of the shame, because she was your daughter and you didn't know her.. ." She was following him. She was drawn to him. Suddenly there was a startled grunt in the darkness ahead of her and she saw the heaped clothes that stank and the sudden movement of the body in front of her, and the rifle was coming up and the muzzle caught against her stocking at the knee.

'… It's fine, Ham, it's Dome's mother. It's Dorrie's mother who's come."

Perhaps it was the calm that had come to the voice now, perhaps it was the gentleness that tinged the voice. Perhaps it was the smell of the bodies and the damp of the clothes on the floor, perhaps it was the rifle and the emptied bottles. Perhaps it was the woman scowling from the bed and the man crouched down hostile on the floor, perhaps it was the suitcase that was packed. Perhaps it was the guilt. She spat it out.

"You were going home?"

"I was hired to write a report."

"Worth two pages, was she? Two pages and that's time to come home?"

"I have written a preliminary report, I will write a fuller report when I am home."

"And that is your idea of the end of it?"

"It's what I was hired to do, what I have done to the best of my ability."

"Enough, is it, just to write a report…?"

"It's what I was asked to do, hired to do."

She could not see into his face. The worst for Mary was the calmness in his voice. And with the calmness was the gentleness. She could remember her tears because of what Dorrie had done to her. She could remember when she had thrown things, saucepans, books, clothes, hurled them because of what Dorrie had done to her. She could remember Charles's accusations because of what Dorrie had done to her, and how she had gone sobbing up the stairs to beat her fists on the locked door because of what Dorrie had done to her. And the guilt roved in her…

Her voice rose. "So you walk out, you walk away?"

"I don't know what else I can do."

"It was just empty words?"

"It was to write the report you requested."

"What the politicians said, what that American said, just empty.. .? Fine words or empty words?"

"You wanted a report, you have a report."

She stood her height. "Was it just empty words? Didn't they talk about a second Nuremberg, didn't they talk about war crimes'? Didn't they talk about a new world order where the guilty would be punished, where they'd be locked up and the key thrown away? Didn't they talk.. .?" The voice calm and gentle. Not the businesslike voice from the graveyard in the village. Not the brusque voice from the kitchen of the Manor House. "It's the sort of thing people say, politicians. It's not to be taken seriously." "You saw the man who killed her…" "I saw him." "You found the evidence of an eyewitness…" "I found the eyewitness." "You know where to go…" "I know where he is, and I know where to go for the eyewitness." She could not see into his face. She saw the grey shadow and the dark sockets of the eyes. "Do you think I am just a woman to be humoured? Do you think I am just a silly woman who is obsessional?" "I wrote my report." She said, hard, "If there is a will then there can be a prosecution… "Sources and Rationale of Territorial Jurisdiction" and "Offences Against the Person, Geneva Conventions" and "Treatment of the Wounded" and "Conflicts not of an International Character". If there is determination then there can be a prosecution…" "What do you want?" She said, brutally, "I want those empty words thrown back down their bloody throats. I want them to choke on those empty words. I want that man before a court, I want to hear your evidence against him

…" "What can I do?" She looked into his eyes, pitilessly. "Go back. Take him. Bring him. Bring him to where they cannot hide behind their empty words. Go… take… bring… Or are you going to walk out on me?" He turned away from her. He was at the window. His hands reached up to the curtains. And her voice died. The silence held the grey gloom of the room. Quite suddenly, the daylight was flooding the room, and the curtains were heaved back. It was the bruises on his face and the cuts and the scarring that she saw first. She gazed at him, and she felt shame. There was a weal on his throat, and on his chest deeper bruises and wider cuts and abrasions.

"I didn't know…"

"I will go back behind the lines and take him and bring him out. Will you please listen to me, Mrs. Braddock, will you please not interrupt me… I will bring him out, but not for you. You, Mrs. Braddock, are owed nothing… I don't think listening comes easily to you, I doubt you ever listened to your daughter, but then I am sure you are a busy woman and capable and resourceful, with many demands on your time. Does life always revolve around you? For Dome's sake I will bring him out, and for myself… Don't drop your head, Mrs. Braddock, and please don't offer me more money… And don't think the United Nations in their glory will stand and cheer, nor our embassy, nor the government here… I will bring him out because knowing and loving your daughter has been my privilege. I will bring him out."