Gerald Seymour - Beyond Recall

‘Was it failure, was it for nothing?’

Too tired now to care.

“If anyone were to ask me, was Matchless a failure, all for nothing, I would say to their face that they are ignorant. Of course it made a difference, and one of value. Might just be that you and those now posturing on the fifth floor have not the wit to realise it.”

Knacker faced him, the new broom’s message-boy.

“I understand your irritation. Way above my pay grade. The instruction is from Internal Security.” The young man, Dominic, had a gentle voice and a shuffling step and a wobbling lower lip, and had shaved poorly that morning, but did not back off.

“I have personal items inside that I wish to collect.”

“Am very sorry, but my instructions are clear. We have first call on the rooms and after completion of our work then you may enter, also your assistants, for a supervised period not exceeding ten minutes. Then the area is to be locked, sealed, and finally returned to the landlords. I am very sorry, but it is over, on D-G Acting’s say-so.”

A church clock chimed the half hour. Thirty minutes past seven o’clock, steady rain falling on the pavement and traffic queuing to get north over the bridges for the run into central London. Unlikely to be play that morning at either the Oval cricket ground or at Lords, and even more unlikely that Knacker would get past Dominic, rated as an able and boring recruit who would go far because of his lack of eccentricity. And behind Dominic were a pair of men in the usual rubbish uniform of the security detail: jeans, leather coats, shades – and it was raining and half dark.

“How long will this charade take?”

“Three or four hours. My apologies but matters are out of my hands. Could be longer. Your assistants are upstairs, Alice Holmes and Tracey Dawkins, and have proved most cooperative, so it may be nearer three. Should be out by late morning. We started at five, both of them here then. I really would suggest that you go and find some breakfast and a cup of tea.”

That hurt… but Knacker had lived a life of inciting men and women to turn against their own, did not champion loyalties. They had landed forty-five minutes after midnight at Gatwick. He had gone back to his suburban home, been there barely two hours, showered and changed and dumped soiled clothes and the sodden suit in which he had travelled, had catnapped beside Maude before his alarm had gone. Had caught the train to Waterloo, then walked along the embankment to Kennington Lane, and had seen the knot of men and women on the pavement outside the Yard. They’d been on a fag break, and piled inside the door were plastic bags bulging with files and electronics, even the bloody raincoat that he kept there… Hurt more than he would show that his girls had jumped ship. Problem was for Knacker that he preached betrayal, gloried in it. He supposed that he could go and find a sandwich bar where there would be hot coffee and a builder’s breakfast, and when he returned the door would be double-locked, and there would be a note with a number and an address further along the road where his personal items were temporarily held. Clients at the taxi company counter, next door, watched them with interest, and a wry grin was on the face of the principal at the gentlemen’s tailor on the other side where they performed miracles letting out trousers for older men and… He smiled. Could in fact have knifed the little bastard, Dominic, then could have packed him off to a souk in Aleppo or Mosul and wiped the smugness off his face. But just smiled.

“I wish you a good career – and a good day.”

He walked away from Dominic and the heavies with him, then rang Arthur Jennings. God, the poor wretch sounded low.

Knacker was asked how it had gone, ‘your show’. Had he been able to tie all the loose ends, as he usually did?

“Went well. Good result. The creature we targeted is up with the angels. Lost our man but we think it’s clean and deniable. Will be well received in the camps and where people from the region of that benighted village are gathered. Will get us solid support… except that we may not have a footprint in those parts if this vandal, illiterate and unimaginative, has his way on the fifth floor.”

He was told the rug had been pulled, that Arthur Jennings had wanted to call a meeting of the Round Table the next day at lunchtime. They could not do it, the pub management said, had a booking for a Pilates class. Have to be another day.

He rang off. If there was ‘another day’ he doubted he would attend. He would not enjoy the obsequies for his work, his style. He walked away. A dinosaur, a representative of a species that teetered on the verge of extinction . . and wondered if, in that great building at the end of the road, Ceausescu Towers, he would ever be missed, indeed if his name would ever be spoken again. It had been a good show, no regrets, what a wheat collector might have said, and saw that spinning coin flying high, stalling, then dropping, splashing into a mud pool. Had left his mark there.

He walked tall, no slouch of failure. A good show, and on Knacker’s watch. And all finished neatly, tidily, his hallmark.

He was nearer to sleep. But as the cloud lifted so the wind freshened and blew cold from the east. The dinghy was tossed, and each time Gaz was thrown against the side, and each time he snatched at the rope, then the pain came, was more fierce. He doubted there would be much longer, and wondered if when the moment came he would continue to fight… but had the face, clung to the image.

The two most recent disappointments, crushing for his morale, were when the circling of the dinghy had meant he looked out towards an unbroken expanse of sea, and he had squinted to focus better. Half the time he had been below the level of the wave caps that tossed him, but when the dinghy came up to mount the swell, he had seen a fishing boat, a big trawler. It would have been heading far out into the Barents, not after the inshore crab stocks but chasing bigger and more challenging fish. The time no longer existed when he could have stood and peeled off some clothing, waved it with ever-increasing urgency. His craft – had it been noticed – would have been taken for a plastic container, or a length of driftwood. The boat had not slowed and not diverted from its course. The second moment of hope, despair, then resignation, had been a tramper making a lonely progress on the horizon. Let alone stand up and wave, shout, Gaz could no longer shift his hips and his legs, and half of his chest sodden and being lapped with water, and he thought the level in the dinghy grew higher. How long? Not long.

Another face gouged into his consciousness.

Kindly features. Natural that Gaz should speak to a new friend. Elegant whiskers sprouted by his friend’s mouth, and its eyes were dark, but the head was well out of the waves and rode with them. His friend would have been curious had no ability nor wish to harm.

Gaz said softly to the seal, tilting his head with difficulty but making eye contact, “Won’t be around long. Apologies for coming on to your territory. Where I come from, used to live, we had plenty like you. They gather off Noup Head and Inga Ness and also they get to be at Castle O’Burrian. It’s where I’m supposed to be going but the chances of it working out are going down the plug. I think there must be a time when I’ll get past caring.”

It was gone. Did not rise up, somersault and dive, just seemed to sink back without disturbance. A wave pitched the dinghy, and then it dropped and he struggled to hold his grip on the rope, and when the craft steadied there was no sign of the seal. Difficult to imagine that it had been a part of the dream, but he was edging closer to sleep.