Gerald Seymour - Beyond Recall

A van arrived. Its bulk swallowed up the space in front of the building’s entrance. There was lettering on the side, painted large, but in the Cyrillic that Gaz did not read. The officer had paused at the step in front of the building and would have seen the immediate chaos, and heard the horns going and the shouts of protest of those who could not move their vehicles from their parking places, those who were double parked and needed to shift shopping… There was an old mantra: If you can see the target then the target can see you but he was well back in the shelter and litter blustered in the wind round his feet. A woman smiled at him and seemed about to start a conversation but he’d looked away, and a toy dog eyed his ankle. The officer greeted the men from the driver’s cab, wheeled out instructions, then the officer waved for his goons to come forward, and one of them went inside the building with three people from the lorry. Timofey was beside him.

“You want bad news, friend, or worse than bad news?”

“Tell me.”

“It is a removals van. You understand? It is the van that you hire to move your possessions when you are leaving. Is that bad or worse?”

Worse than bad. Gaz stood, watched, and Timofey flaked away from him and he saw him back at the Fiat, bent low and talking urgently to his girl; saw her extricate herself from the back seat, stand and stretch and wipe her clothes. She nodded and straightened and started to walk, passing the bus-stop but not looking at him. Gaz felt a helplessness, like the world had conspired to punch him, count him out.

A dull light burned over the entrance to the apartment block.

The back of the van was open. Two men made a meal of shifting what Gaz reckoned were half-filled cardboard boxes. The goons stood aside and allowed the men to wheeze, move at snail speed from the door to the van, then put down each box, sweat a bit, swear a bit, light a cigarette, chuck it away, then lift the box into the van… and start again. A woman came out of the door and shrilled a complaint at them but they ignored her. She was elderly, with tinted hair close to her scalp and wearing too much lipstick. She jabbed her finger at the goons having had no satisfaction from the removal men. They spoke to her, and the indication was that it was none of their business. Gaz thought her the sort of old lady who could be a friend. She walked off with an arthritic limp, carrying a plastic shopping bag, hanging loosely off her arm. The woman was as good as ideal for what he needed: there was a drumbeat in his head and anxiety reared. She went past the bus-stop and along the street, avoiding the weeds and cracks in the pavement, was on the opposite side of the road to the Fiat. Gaz eased himself up from his seat in the bus shelter, seemed to look at his watch and despair of the bus he wanted ever arriving, and a couple of other hopeful passengers shrugged with him. He headed for the Fiat.

The window was wound down. He leaned forward and spoke in Timofey’s ear.

He gave his command softly. Easy enough… The woman had left the block with her shopping bag, was probably heading for a near-by store. Had not gone far because walking was clearly painful. Why she was special to Gaz was that she had, barefaced, quizzed the two men who escorted the officer. And seemed satisfied with their answers. Timofey said it would be for Natacha to do it… In the back of the Fiat, the old man snored healthily and Natacha had one of the two bottles purchased at the bar unopened at her feet, but she had been generous with the other, a third of which had gone down the father’s throat.

He thought the business was slipping. It had seemed almost wrapped and his journey near complete and he had the documentation he would require at the port’s security gate, and the trawler would have loaded its tanks and emptied its holds, and they’d have been waiting for him. Would have been as it was in Syria when the guys came back into the Forward Operating Base and did the detailed debrief for the Sixers who were regarded as too precious to step outside the compound and get mud on their shoes. He went back to the bus-stop shelter. It was always good in the debrief when the guys came back and had done well, and there might be high fives and slapped backs. But, other times… a surveillance screwed up and a target was lost. There were times when he had not done well, and had not done badly, but the situation hadn’t played out as hoped. Nobody to be praised and nobody to be blamed. Crestfallen faces. Saw Alice’s and she’d blink and mutter that it was ‘no one’s fault’ and not believe it, and Fee would swear, and Knacker would hear it and walk away. Knacker would leave it for the girls to tidy up. Gaz would go home to the island, and would open up the bungalow and would smell the damp air, notice the grass that had needed cutting before he’d been volunteered, and he’d be back in the dark place where the black dog roamed. He would get confirmation when the elderly woman came back along the pavement, burdened with her shopping bag.

He sat in the shelter and at his feet was the detritus of fast food meals, and a couple of sodden newspapers left in the rain, till the wind had driven them into the shelter.

It was a matter of the time schedules, and what was possible and what was not… He would take a sense of the blame if the bad stuff was confirmed, not that it was deserved because Gaz was only the watcher and had done what was asked of him.

The door to his cabin was wide open.

Jasha knew he had both closed and locked it.

He left the headlights of the pick-up on full beam and aimed at the door. The night hours were minimal and the sun would not set but the high trees around his home darkened the clearing except for the cone of brightness from his vehicle. Normally, when he came back from a day in Murmansk, the dog would be barking for him and scratching at the door. He heard nothing but the movement of the wind in the high branches around his cabin He kept a torch in the glove compartment. Used to carry a game rifle in the vehicle for when he came back in the long dusk but had abandoned the habit because the FSB and police units might have found it in a random search and were dishonest bastards, would have demanded payment not to hold him up while the weapon was confiscated and the paperwork checked out… It was why he detested going into the city, why he preferred to be here, at his cabin, and alone.

Maybe he did not need the torch because sufficient of the headlights’ power went through the open doorway and lit the far wall where his sink was, and the stove that was powered by bottled gas, and something of the chaos inside was visible. His jaw was set and his chin jutted. Jasha was not a man easily beaten when confronted by danger. Could be life-threatening, but would not slap him down if the safety of a friend, anyone who relied on him, was at issue. He took a deep breath, steadied himself. The dog was both a comrade and a friend, and had stayed silent. He reckoned the dog would hear the approach of the vehicle from at least 300 metres and would have worked on the door, heavy scratching. He doubted that the bear, his Zhukov, was still inside the cabin. Imagined it would have forced its way in, used its great strength, its one ferocious set of claws to prise open the door, would have gone inside and the dog would have made a token gesture of resistance and been savaged. He thought that he would find his cupboards emptied and tins holed by claws used as can openers and everything wrecked. He had loved that dog. He had been a puppy, abandoned by the military checkpoint at Titovka and Jasha had rescued it. The dog was his most valued friend, his constant companion. He would bury it that night. When he approached the door, the heavy wood planks hanging crazily, he would pause, hope to God that Zhukov would power past him if still inside. If he were in its path it would kill him…