Gerald Seymour - A Line in the Sand

They were at the last stages of the discharge of the crude. The weather at the offshore jetty was too fierce to permit his crew to work with paint rollers on the superstructure and hull plates of the tanker. The master's crew were employed on small maintenance jobs in the accommodation block below the bridge and in the engine housing; unnecessary work, but something had to be found for them. The master's greater concern, more than finding work for his crew and occupation for his officers, was the failure of the people in Tehran to provide him with a time for sailing. He still expected to leave the waters of the terminal port that night, but the coded confirmation had not reached him. The man who had gone over the side of his tanker was never far from his thoughts. It was not possible for the master to believe this man was blocked. He demanded of his radio technicians that they maintain a watch through every hour of the day. He waited.

"Hello can you put me through to Theft Section, thanks… Hello, who's that?… Tracy, it's Gladys yes, Gladys Jones. I've still got flu. Yes, that's what I heard, a lot of it about. I'm not coming in, not passing it all round… Yes, bed's the best place. Can you tell them in Personnel? Thanks… What?… Police?… What sort of police?… What did they want?… Thanks, Tracy, it'll just be something silly… Thanks… I'll sort it when I've got rid of the flu… No, I'm not in trouble… "Bye…"

She pocketed the handkerchief through which she had spoken to give the sound of illness to her voice and put down the receiver of the payphone. A woman beat her knuckles impatiently on the glass screen beside her. She felt faint, worse than if she had influenza. Detectives had been in that morning, a Saturday morning when only a half-strength staff worked till lunch-time, had searched through the drawers of her desk and asked where she was. If they knew her name they would know, also, her car. She staggered away from the payphone, barging past the woman. She had been told there were four detectives. She was an intelligent young woman, she could assess the scale of the crisis that faced her.

But it did not cross the mind of Farida Yasmin that she should run, hide and abandon him. He needed her.

Martindale kept the Red Lion in the village.

He was a brewery tenant, and every penny of cash ever saved by him and his wife was now sunk in the pub, along with the bank's overdraft. It had been a mistake. The mistake had been in coming to the village on a warm, crowded August day two summers back, seeing the visitors parading on the beach and queuing for ice-creams at the shop, and believing that he could do profitable trade where his predecessor had failed. He had thought the market was in visitors wanting cheap meals and fruit machines. But last summer it had rained in torrents and the visitors had stayed away. It had been their dream, through all the years they'd owned a corner news agent in Hounslow, to have a busy, pretty pub on the coast. Now the dream was going sour, and the bank manager wrote more often.

His winter trade was entirely local not gin and tonics, not sherries, not whiskies with ginger, but the brewery's beers and lagers, on which the mark-up was least profitable. He had enough locals to make a darts team, and they came in wearing their work clothes to prop themselves against his bar. If he alienated his few regulars, he would not be able to meet the brewery's dues and keep the bloody bank off his back.

He quite liked Frank Perry.

Martindale owed Frank Perry. Frank Perry had helped him sort out, at minimal cost, the central-heating boiler in the cellar. If he'd gone to the trade it would have been maximum expense. The far side of the bar, the previous night, the talk had been of Frank Perry, the school and the policemen with guns.

He scraped open the bolts on the front door, against which the rain lashed, and waited for his Saturday lunch-time drinkers.

"I'll look ridiculous."

Davies said firmly, "In matters of protection, Mr. Perry, please do me the courtesy of accepting my advice."

"It weighs half a ton."

"Mr. Perry, I am asking you to wear it."

"I can't."

"Mr. Perry, put it on."

"No."

Meryl exploded, "For Christ's sake, Frank, put the bloody thing on."

They were in the kitchen. The boy, Stephen, was in the shed with Paget and Rankin, out in the garden. It would be worse if the kid heard the parents rowing. Davies held the bullet-proof vest.

"What does it matter what you bloody well look like?" she added.

"Put it on."

His principal took off the anorak and scowled, but he'd been chastened by the fury of her outburst. She turned, went out, crashed the door shut after her and they heard her stamping up the stairs. His principal dropped his head and Davies slipped on the vest. It was navy blue, kevlar-plated, and the manufacturers said it was proof against a handgun's bullets, flying glass and metal shrapnel. It covered Perry's chest, stomach and back. Davies pulled the Velcro straps tight and fastened them. She came back in, carrying a grotesquely large sweater. Perry was foul-faced, but she just threw it at him. Davies kept a wry little smile hidden because the sweater fitted comfortably over the vest.

"And what about you?"

"What I do, Mr. Perry, is not your concern."

"I hope you find them," Meryl said.

"Find what?"

"What you're looking for I shouldn't expect too much."

Perry led, followed by Davies.

He held his radio up to his face and told Paget and Rankin that he was leaving the location in the company of Juliet Seven. Through the front door, the wind and rain whipped at them. They walked briskly. The house was now a gloomy bunker, and he thought it was precious for his principal to get out of it. Davies's eyes raked each of the front gardens to his right and left, and the parked cars. Since he had given the instruction, the unmarked mobile had gone up and down the road seven times between the house and the pub. It was what it took to get a man his Saturday lunch-time drink. They had started at walking pace, then they jogged. Davies held the hem of his jacket so that his Glock in the waist holster would not be exposed. The rain came on harder, and they ran. Going to the pub was an idiotic, unnecessary risk.

Before he had left the bed-and-breakfast, a call to the duty officer had told him they were now categorized as threat-level 2: The principal is confirmed on a death list, the enemy intend to kill the principal; the security co-ordinator does not have the method or the time at which the attempt will be made. Davies knew it by heart.

He had done protection officer on threat-level 2 years back when he had guarded the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, but he had never been with a principal categorized as threat-level 1. As they sprinted across the car-park in front of the pub, he was thinking that it would be worse for her, left behind in the bunker, lights out, curtains drawn.

They reached the porch. Davies used his sleeve to wipe his face, then smoothed his hair. He heard laughter from inside, and canned music.

In front of him, the principal stiffened momentarily, as if gathering his nerve, before shoving open the door.

A man was leaning against the bar, talking. Perry said, almost diffident, "Hello, Vince."

Another younger man at the bar stopped laughing.

"All right, then, Gussie?"

Another man, older, was perched on a stool.

"Good to see you, Paul."

Round the corner was a larger bar with more drinkers. Davies wasn't concerned with them. He stared around him at the fruit machines, tables and chairs, reproduction photographs in sepia tint on the walls and bits of ship brass, the smoking fire burning wet logs. The story had stopped, and the laughter; the older man held his glass against his privates and beer was frothed on his lip. The landlord was a skinny, whey-faced weasel with a cigarette hanging from his mouth. Davies thought it a pitiful place. Everything around him was fake. He noticed a chair at the side of the bar, away from the drinkers, where he could face the door and also see round the corner.