Gerald Seymour - A Line in the Sand

He held out his hand and felt the beat of the rain.

Vahid Hossein's arm was at full stretch. In his fingers was one of the last pieces of chewed rabbit meat.

The bird watched him. The rain made a spray of jewelled colours on its collar feathers and on its back. It was beside his hand and he saw the wild suspicion in its eyes. He thought the suspicion fought with its exhaustion and hunger.

Each time it hopped closer, he could see the darkening flesh of the wound under the wing and he knew the bird would die unless he could clean it.

He made small sounds, slight whistling noises, the cries he had heard long before in a faraway marshland, like a hen bird to chicks. The beak of the bird, with the power to rip at his hand, was beside his fingers and the chewed meat. He saw the talons that could gouge his flesh.

He had woken and crawled from his bramble den. The bird had been watching him and he'd taken comfort from it. Once again, he had skirted the marsh, cut through Old Covert into Hoist Covert and crossed the river. For a final time, he'd gone over the ground he would use at the end of that day. He had approached the house from the side and had found a tree in a garden under which the grass was covered with a carpet of blown-away blossom. He had sat motionless in the tree for an hour. From it he could see the back and the side of the house, across three gardens. He saw the soft light in the hut and the curtained black windows. He watched the policemen, back-lit when they opened the door of the hut, emerge and walk the perimeter of the garden, and he saw the guns they carried.

The car cruised past every twenty minutes, as regular as if a clock timed it. That night, he would return in the darkness at the end of the day, and he would use the rifle.

The harrier, in a darting movement, took the chewed meat from his fingers. He could have wept with happiness.

There was caked blood and yellow mucus on the wound.

Carefully, as if he moved forward on a target, Vahid Hossein took another scrap of meat with his free hand, chewed on it and laid it on his wrist. The bird flapped, jumped. He felt its talons strike into his arm and then the prick of the beak as it took the chewed meat from his wrist.

The bird perched on his arm and, with great gentleness, he stroked the wet feathers on the crown of its head.

"It's Saturday."

"I really think, Mr. Perry, we should talk this through."

"It's what I do every Saturday."

"You have to accept, Mr. Perry, and I am picking my words with care, that the situation has changed."

"I haven't been out, not even into the garden, of my house in two days."

"Which has been sensible."

"I am bloody suffocating in here. Enough is enough, I go out every Saturday lunch-time."

"Mr. Perry, I am not responsible for the situation."

"Oh, that's brilliant. I suppose I'm responsible. Blame me, that's convenient."

It was another of those moments when Bill Davies thought it necessary to assert his authority.

"You are, in my opinion, totally responsible. You told my colleague, Mr. Blake, last night about your read ion to a radio appeal that gave your former identity. Probably half of the adult population of the country heard that appeal, and the name of the hospital you were directed to. Don't you think that the Iranian embassy listens to the early-morning news bulletins on the radio, which follow directly after such appeals? I'm not a high-flying detective, but I'm bright enough to put that together. They'd have picked you up there, then hung on to the trace. It was your mistake just as the weapon in the playground was mine. Don't get me wrong, Mr. Perry, I'm not one of those people who'll say you've brought all this on yourself through emotional carelessness, but I know plenty who would. That was just to set the record straight brought all this on yourself."

But the principal had a streak of obstinacy, which Davies found mildly attractive. Perry blinked, absorbed what he was told, gulped, then said, "It's Saturday, and I'm going."

"Your last word?"

"Last final word. I can't take it, another whole day, like a rat in a cage."

"I'll make the arrangements."

"What arrangements?"

"It's not straightforward, Mr. Perry, getting you out for a Saturday lunch-time drink, then back from the pub."

His principal had swung out of the dining room, and shut the door noisily, petulantly, behind him. Bill Davies sat again at the dining-room table reading the paper. He'd rung home that morning, hoped one of the boys would pick it up, but Lily had. He'd tried to be pleasant, to make reasonable noises, and she'd asked him when he was coming home, but he couldn't answer her, hadn't been able to think of anything else to say. She'd put down the phone on him. In seventeen weeks he had had nine complete days off work, and for four of them he had been so tired he had slept through till midday. His marriage was going down the drain and he didn't know what he could do about it. He'd seen it often enough, with other guys, who all put on the brave front and moved out of their homes to shack up with barmaids and slags. Some were taken off SB protection, and some smooth-talked the counsellor and kept the job and the firearm, had the meetings in parks and at McDonald's with the kids every third weekend, and they all talked about the new woman in their lives as if it were heaven. He could never find the time to think about it, he was too busy, too stressed. If it happened if- Bill Davies would have two or three seconds to react, top estimate. Should his mind be on his wife, his kids, in those seconds he would lose his principal, if it happened. All the case histories he knew were about mistakes and distractions.

He pushed up from the table and went to the window. The dining-room window was next on her list for net curtains. He stood back from the glass and peered out. He could see the neat homes, the tended gardens, the shop, more homes, and then the village hall with waste ground at the back.

It had been raining earlier and the road glistened; there was thin sunshine now but the rain was threatening from the sea. At the end of the road, on the corner, was the pub. From the window he could see only the end gable of the building. He counted eighteen houses on the left side, between the house and the pub, and the parked cars, and fifteen on the right side, with the shop… At the shooting range they used was Hogan's Alley, a row of plywood houses, and in front of them were derelict gutted cars. Behind the plywood and in the cars were cardboard shapes that could jump into vision. When to fire, when not to fire, was the reason for Hogan's Alley. They used 'simunition' there, paint-tipped 9mm plastic bullets. The target might have a weapon or be holding a baby against her chest. No escape when walking Hogan's Alley: hold the fire and the instructor would tell you drily, "You're dead, mate, he got you." Fire too soon and you'd be told, "You killed a woman, mate, you're charged with murder." The road, the houses, the parked cars, was Hogan's Alley, all the way to the pub.

She came into the dining room and brought him a mug of coffee.

"That's very kind of you, Mrs. Perry, but you didn't have to."

"I was doing one for myself. You're going to the pub?"

"That's what Mr. Perry wants, so that's what we're going to do."

"It's not about a drink, it's about finding his friends."

"I appreciate that."

"He has to have his friends."

"Yes."

She was close to him. He could smell the scent and warmth of her and could see the worn-down strain at her eyes. It was always worse for the women. She held a handkerchief in her hand, pulling and worrying at it. Had he put his arm around her shoulder then her head would have gone to his chest and he thought she would have wept. It was not his job to offer comfort. He thanked her for the coffee and began to make the arrangements to visit the pub at lunch-time.