Gerald Seymour - Battle Sight Zero

Rather basic, how it had started, him and her. Manchester, out to the east of the city centre. He was there.

Three boys. They would have seen a young woman, heading for the Deansgate area where the bright lights were and the big shops and the crowds. Head held high, and no scarf and no robe covering the jeans and the anorak that the guys she’s been meeting had wanted her to wear. They’d have expected her to take a bus, but there must have been trouble on the route that night: a coincidence. No bus, so she had walked, and three boys had spotted her. She would have had a handbag held close to her body as protection against a mugger, and she would have had her rucksack strap across a shoulder and she might have been hurrying and nervous or might have been sauntering and digesting what had come from her meeting… Could have seen the three boys, or not. The road went past a couple of old warehouses, converted in to smart office space but most of the employees would have shut down their screens and gone to the bars in town.

Andy ambling along, a lorry driver, doing deliveries for a company providing materials from a wholesaler to building sites… Did not have to be specified what he was doing in that side street, where he had been, where he was going, not a necessary part of the story. But he was there, and saw it unfold.

One in front of her, one alongside and one behind her, hands reaching out for her. She was jostled first, then pushed, and someone would have grabbed the strap of the rucksack and another would have gone for the handle of her bag, and she would have stumbled. Pretty classic mugging technique, and that part of the city had high marks for street crime. A little squeal, then a shout that was strangled down in her throat, as the boy wrestling with the rucksack hit her. Something between a slap and a punch, catching her across the mouth and cutting off the squeal. No one to hear her except for Andy, who happened to be around a hundred yards away up a side street. She went down, but was spirited. A bit less naivete and she would have let go of her rucksack, and with plenty less obduracy, she’d have given up her bag. What was in the bag? Student stuff, some cosmetics, and a purse which would have been near empty because she hadn’t been to the bank for weekend spending money. She was clinging to her rucksack and had the bag in front of her and went down on to the dirt and the weeds of the pavement. A boot went in hard, into her ribs, and most of its force was probably deflected by an arm; one of them had bent down and hit her in the face and might have worn a ring because she was cut below the nose and above her top lip. Not much blood but enough to make a mess. Andy was running.

Andy – way back, before he was Andy Knight and before he was Norm Clarke, before Phil Williams, before the intervention of the rabbit – had been a recruit at the Commando Training Centre, down on the south Devon coast and close to the wide mud-flats of the Exe estuary. He knew, long time ago but lessons not forgotten, about intervention. Move in fast, achieve surprise, use maximum and sudden force. All three were bent over her and she was fighting with true bottle, real guts, to protect her possessions, seemed keener on defending them than herself, and their frustration grew, and their violence increased. He was close when he heard the wheeze as air was sucked from her lungs after a knee had been forced down on her chest and he thought her kicking and writhing were losing strength. He reached her: as if the cavalry had turned up, and not much time to play with. He had chucked himself at them. Three against one. Fists, knees, a choice head-butt, and the guys would not have known what had intervened, who had joined the fight, and the surprise was total. No quarter asked, they’d not the wit, and none given because his response was murderous. One rolled away on his side and was facing a wall, and his hands were across his privates and he’d cried like a pony that had hurt a fetlock, and another was stunned and might be concussed and had given up on the struggle. One had her bag, had wrested it off her. She kicked the stunned one, didn’t connect with the back of his head but not for want of trying. The handbag was gone, and the guy limped off down the pavement. He’d gone after that guy, had jumped on his back and pressured him down, and there might have been a little cry, ‘Easy, mate, easy’ or ‘Steady down, mate, that enough, that’s…’ He didn’t hear it if there was. He had the guy by his hair, then banged his face down, hard enough to split his forehead, maybe loosen some teeth. The guy took off, abandoned the bag.

Andy had carried the bag back. The clasp was still fastened.

She was crying, not self-pitying, but from shock. A couple of cars went by and it was that part of the city where a wise driver would not have stopped to be a Good Samaritan but would instead have checked that his lock button was depressed. She was shivering. Andy held her tight. He knelt beside her and cradled her upper body and head against his chest, might have murmured something comforting.

The one who perhaps had concussion spat clear a tooth, coughed out, ‘Fuck you, mate’ and went on his way. The one who was against the wall still cried, and still held himself but scrabbled with his fingers against the wall and was able to stand, and looked at Andy – pure malevolence – and shambled away and was sick as he walked, half doubled up, and shouted back, ‘See if I don’t fucking get you, see if I don’t.’ He bent to lift her, was prepared to take her weight. She might then have realised that a man, a stranger, had an arm around her waist, and that her head was close to his chin. She’d have felt the warmth of his body. He picked up the tooth, eased a handkerchief out of his pocket, wrapped it, put it in her hand and said something quiet about a ‘souvenir’. He told her she had done well, that the guys – all three of them – were in worse health than her. She clung to him, went weepy, and might have realised that she was now safe, that he’d not allow anything else to come close, frighten her, or hurt her.

That was how it had been, how they had met.

They had gone for a coffee. He’d been at the counter and she’d been in the toilets, and had come back, looking almost normal. The battering had been washed off with warm water, but there were dirt stains on her jeans and anorak, and there would be a worsening graze across her nose by the morning, and big discoloration above and below her left eye and the cuts would take a while to heal. He had reached out, across the table, and she’d taken his hand and held it. She had told him a little of herself and where she was lodging, had clung to his hand and he had found it difficult to halt her trembling, and he was her saviour. A week later, he had gone to her Hall of Residence and a porter had called up to her room, and he had handed over a cheap but decent bunch of flowers, and it was likely that no one had ever done that for her before… All a few months back.

He left an envelope on the bedside table. On the mattress were the sheets and duvet, all neatly folded. In the envelope was a month’s rent, and an unsigned note of thanks. He’d be long gone when a phone call was made to the landlord announcing that the room could now be treated as vacant. It was the way Andy Knight, who he was that day, operated. No more checks to be done, and dawn was coming up, and he closed the door quietly behind him. There had been sex in the night on the floor above, discreet and quiet. Later, he’d heard footsteps on the stairs, and no doubt the guy who had that room had seen her to the street door, and she might have had to walk to look for a taxi rank.

Zed had never been in his room. Celibacy, of a sort, went with his job. He could have a girlfriend who was not under investigation, quite separated from the targets, and could do something with her, but it was frowned on and would load him with complications… and no queries about what was possible for a guy who was inside the small élite group of Level One Undercovers. Level One was the pick of the bunch and was hedged around with regulation. To have brought Zed here, turned the light low, maybe lit a candle, and started with kissing and slipping the buttons, was just about the most heinous crime he might commit… The professional standards body stipulated – no ‘perhaps’ and no ‘maybe’ – that it was never acceptable to bed anyone who was targeted. An unequivocal statement, a ban. The journey now was for the two of them: hotels, maybe narrow beds and a warm belly against his flat stomach. He went down the stairs carrying the grip and the plastic sack, and closed the front door quietly, and would have disturbed nobody. He had been through Foundation level, had passed those hurdles as Phil Williams, had been moved on to Advanced stage and had survived as Norm Clarke. He was one of the best, and psychologists queued up to meet him, evaluate him. Analysis said that he was the model product, what they all should strive to be. He was thought to have the personality that inspired trust, seemed incapable of deceit, and had in the past infiltrated a group working to sabotage medical experiments involving animals, had seemed a genuine and committed activist. Had also become integral to a gang bringing in Class A through the ferry port of Plymouth and then flogging the stuff along the M4 motorway corridor, and had been trusted. The ones who found him ‘genuine’ were still banged up with plenty time to serve, and the ones who had ‘trusted’ him would not walk freely before their kids were adults. Done, dusted, and behind him.