Gerald Seymour - Beyond Recall

Outside, a little fresh sunshine came with the breeze and fell on Gaz’s cheeks. Their prisoner would have assumed this was the start of his last journey. When his feet hit the smoothed dirt beyond the slab in front of the step, he stiffened and tried to drop his weight. But Gaz shoved him from the back and Timofey propelled him from the side. It was only half a dozen paces and the officer was docile. He’d have believed this was the journey that led to a killing site, where there was waste ground and where a body might lie for days, weeks, or months. They had not gagged him again and the blindfold was further down than before. He could have shouted but did not, and he was manhandled along the path, then down to the pavement, then up the hill to where the car was parked.

No further attempt to slow them down, and no yell for help. They used to watch the videos of the killings by the ISIS people in Syria. After, they would go to their bunk rooms and lie in the darkness and wonder how they would be if it were them wearing the jumpsuits, being led out on to the sand, forced to kneel, hair pulled back and their throats exposed, the blade coming closer and laughter circling them. Wondered if they would go to their deaths with bravery – whatever that meant – and defiance. Struggling to make it difficult for the butchers, or just dumbly docile. They had no trouble with the officer. He did not threaten, went with them, and would have believed the man behind him, with the firearm, was the killer who would end his life. Cars went past, and a bus dawdled at a pedestrian crossing, and people on the pavement seemed not to see them.

They wriggled their way into the car. Timofey and Natacha in front, Gaz and the officer in the back. They headed for the bridge and the start of the long route into the tundra, the E105 highway, and he reckoned the Russian prayed silently though his lips moved. Gaz could not say whether he would succeed, or what would be the cost if he failed.

“Why have you stopped?”

The Fiat had pulled off the main road and parked outside a hardware store. The trade for the day had started and the front area was filled with piles of plastic buckets, lightweight ladders, and forests of broom handles. They were on the outskirts of Murmansk, well past the aircraft carrier and ahead of them was the misted outline of the bridge.

Timofey said, “I need money.”

“For what?”

“Because I need it.”

Gaz had his knees up by his ears in the cramped area in the back of the Fiat and his legs were hard against the back of Timofey’s seat. Beside him, trussed, was the Russian. There had been no talk between them. Gaz held the pistol, still with the safety on, still armed. They braked close to the display of plastic buckets, and the Russian’s weight cannoned into Gaz.

“We don’t have time to lose.”

“Then give me some money.”

“How much?” The sum was named. Gaz had to squirm to get his free hand into his hip pocket and heave clear a wad of notes. Natacha reached back, took the money, flicked off several notes then handed the rest back, and her eyes danced in fun. She was out of the car, walked past the buckets and went inside the hardware store. Gaz fidgeted and his legs hurt and his mind was messed, wondering how he would manage what he intended: and he expected – all the time – to hear sirens and see lights. Other customers at the hardware store walked past the little Fiat. Timofey smoked and the car filled with the nicotine cloud and then the Russian started to cough, like he was choking, and a window was wound down. A buggy was pushed past and a small kid pointed at the back seat and would have seen a man with a plastic bag wrapped around his head and knotted at the back. It was a bad place to wait. Timofey dragged on the cigarette then chucked it from the window, let it gutter on the road. She came out. On her shoulder was a heavy garden spade. Sunlight caught the metal.

She had a jaunty walk, like it was fun to go into a store and buy a spade and carry it out, like it helped to move the day on. Natacha opened her door and squeezed inside and sat with the spade between her legs.

She reached back and gave Gaz the change.

He said, “Why did we stop?”

“Because we did not have a spade where we live. We have no garden there, so no need for a spade.”

They were chuckling.

Gaz said, innocent and uncomprehending, and distracted by what he planned and how it would be achieved, “What is the spade for?”

Timofey was driving fast, and a cloud of fumes belched from the exhaust. “Charge it on your expenses – except that Natacha did not bring you a receipt. You want a receipt… you want to know the cost of everything, do you? How much does a bullet cost, a police bullet? I do not know what is the price of a bullet for a Makarov. Perhaps we give it back afterwards and tell them that we are one bullet short and they will not be concerned. What is a spade for? A spade is to dig a hole. We buy a spade because a hole must be dug.”

“It’s what they do in films,” Natacha said.

“What do they do in films?”

“Do you not go to the cinema, watch gangster films? They make the guy dig his hole. They watch him and he digs and they tell him to get the hole longer and get the hole deeper. He sweats when he digs but they have no water for him. He knows what is about to happen but, in the films, he does not sit down, refuse to dig. We will see if he does. See if he wants to fight or wants to go quietly, quickly to his Maker. We free his hands so that he can work but we keep his legs tied. But we did not have a spade and we cannot make a hole without a spade. Do you understand that?” Colour flushed the officer’s face and he was about to speak but did not.

Natacha said, “He digs the hole and we put him down in it and then tell him to kneel, and perhaps he will do so, and perhaps we have to hit him with the spade, but he is still tied and cannot run. Then it is for you. That is our part complete. Why we have to take you both out of the city you have not explained. We could have found you a place up by the Alyosha, by the monument, where there are bushes, places to hide, where the whores work in the summer. He could have been put to dig there. I think you were a soldier.”

Gaz looked full into her face. His eyes did not waver, nor hers. He had said, take him out , it was what was said in the films, the gangster movies. ‘Take him out’ was the drawled phrase in the American dialogue for a killing… Of course he was a soldier. Would have been a soldier and would have been highly regarded by his commanders, had been sent on a mission of danger. Would be a trained man, resourceful, without weakness: she almost snorted at the thought, not like the idiots that had been sent by her own government to Britain and other places in Europe and who were identified as assassins. This was a professional soldier and he would feel nothing when it came to the moment of looking into the pit and watching the officer slowly lower himself down and kneel. He would line up the pistol on the back of the officer’s neck, or the back of his scalp. Perhaps the officer’s lips would be moving, as if he recited a prayer. Might be allowed to finish the prayer and then be shot, might be getting to the last lines of it, and then the trigger pulled. As a professional he would not hesitate, would do it, and cleanly, would take him out as they said in the movies. She had never named Timofey. Had been offered inducements of early release, had been threatened with abuse, rape, but had not betrayed him. She did not think that Timofey would have been able to look over the open sight of the pistol, aim, squeeze. Not Timofey. This was a soldier and it was his training. They had cleared the bridge. No roadblock in place. Fuck knows what they would have done… scattered, and she and Timofey knowing where to meet eventually, and leaving the other two. Would have been bad if there had been a roadblock, would have been the end of the dream. In the movies, the screen first went to black and the sound was killed and the lights came up. The dream was the money. Because the mission was important enough for the ‘sleepers’ to be woken, Timofey said the reward would be huge. She did not know where they would go, her and Timofey, to spend the money… the officer saw her, and would have heard every word she had said.