Gerald Seymour: A Line in the Sand

Each time he had given a name, Harry Fenton had smiled and looked up into the intelligence officer's eyes. The man didn't blink, or turn away. Himself, confronted with names, he would have wanted to puke up his food. Of all those he knew at Thames House and worked with, he'd thought only little Miss Prim Parker would have held her composure as well as the intelligence officer had. Of course she would; it was Cathy who had come back from the airport with the idea of shafting the bastards, the esteemed allies. Smiling into his guest's face, he let the names sink, then resumed eating. He cleared his plate. He had ordered gelati for them both, and requested espresso coffee to follow.

"Around Vahid Hossein a net is currently tightening."

The tables around them had cleared. Bills were paid. The restaurant staff found coats, umbrellas and shopping bags for their clients. Fenton admired the calm of the intelligence officer. The coffee was brought.

The mobile telephone bleeped.

Fenton sipped at his coffee.

He let the telephone ring.

He returned the cup slowly to the saucer.

He lifted the telephone and listened. A smile played on his face. He thanked his caller. The intelligence officer watched him for a sign. He drank again from his coffee cup, wiped his mouth with his napkin then leaned forward.

"Vahid Hossein is dead my condolences. He was brought out of the marshes like a stinking, slime-ridden rat, dead. It's the way these things end, I suppose, without decency. We are faced1 because of the weight of evidence, with a most serious situation involving relations between our two countries yes?"

Harry Fenton raised his hand, flicked his fingers imperiously for the bill to be brought him.

"Allow me to answer my own question. No it can be that it never happened, but "never happened" comes at a price."

Astonishment spread, for the first time, on the intelligence officer's face, and he bit his lip.

"It never happened, and therefore it never happens again. I repeat, it never happened. And your agents never again threaten the life of Frank Perry. It's an attractive solution to both of us."

The intelligence officer reached out and grasped Harry Fenton's hand. The deal was done with their locked fists.

He paid the bill and carefully pocketed the receipt. It was the last of Harry Fenton's lunches. A few minutes later, after the close whispering of details, they were out on the pavement and he waved down a taxi for his guest. He started to walk back towards Thames House. The body would go from a closed van into the cargo hold of the aircraft. The threat against the life of Frank Perry would not be renewed. The Americans, arrogant shits, were shafted and their staffers would have no brief to spell out in front of the cameras. Peace was preserved, deniability ruled, and the bridges remained in place. The bottles would be broken out of Barnaby Cox's cabinet to celebrate a good, most satisfactory show.

He walked at a breezy pace, and he laughed out loud.

It had never happened.

Back at Thames House, he told Cox what he had achieved and the raid on the cabinet began.

Fenton was downing his second drink, might have been the third, when an assistant director wandered into the office.

"I've just heard well done, Barney. Up on the top floor we're all very pleased, but then we always had confidence that you'd get it right. My congratulations, Barney."

The body had been taken.

Davies had gone.

Paget and Rankin had left before him, loaded their kit into the car and driven away.

Geoff Markham had stayed as little time as possible.

The workmen had dismantled the poles and the screens hanging between them; the crane would be there in the morning to lift out the hut, and the technical people to disconnect the electronics. The workmen had carried out the sandbags and had helped to manhandle the mattresses back to the beds upstairs.

Only Blake, the last of his friends, remained, but would leave at dawn.

The dusk fell. He had opened every heavy curtain in the house and the lights blazed out over the green. He had torn out all of the net curtains, peeled the sticky tape from the mirrors and placed their pictures back on the walls. He had pushed his easy chair, in the living room, away from the fire and into the window. He sat in his chair and the brightness of the lights lit the path, the front gate and the fence. He saw them come Jerry and Mary first, then Barry and Emma.

They came out of the darkness beyond the throw of the lights and they laid the flowers against the gate and the fence. The gang from the pub followed them with more flowers. A few minutes afterwards it was Mrs. Fairbrother, Peggy and Paul. The call had come from London. A drink-slurred voice, against a background of laughter and bottles clinking with glasses and music, had told him that the danger was past and would not return, that he was free to live his life.

The boy, her child, sat at his feet and watched with him as the cluster of flowers grew the vicar brought fresh-picked daffodils. The voice had said that what had never happened was over.

Early in the morning, after Blake had gone, he would ring for a van, and after he had fixed for it to take away their possessions he would make the arrangements for the funeral, and after the funeral he would drive away from the village with her child. He would drive to a place where he and her d~ild could remember her and give her love, a place where they were safe together from guns and friends.

He sat in the chair, his fingers gripping the boy's shoulders, and watched the stream of shadowy figures come in silence from the darkness, pause by the gate, before hurrying back to the safety of their homes. Together they listened to the distant sound of waves breaking relentlessly against the shore and stared out, beyond the floral penance, into the emptiness of the black night.