Gerald Seymour - Battle Sight Zero

The man said, ‘Excuse me – you speak English? Please, if you speak English…’

He replied, ‘I do and am. How can I help?’

And Detective Chief Inspector, Gough, came close to him. He said in a firm voice, ‘Bit lost, and the boss over there seems to think we’re in one place, and I’ve a different view on it. Have a look at our map, please.’

Well choreographed. The civilian analyst, Pegs, had parked herself on a bench a few yards away, had then addressed a remark at Zed, something anodyne, but she responded and gave Gough and him space… only for a few seconds and not to be laboured. Something like, ‘Where will we need to get the Metro to…’

The voice tailed. Andy Knight, who he was that week, day, hour, jabbed with his finger on the map and found the Cathedral de la Major down by the waterside, and said softly that the relevant place was Place de la Major and Esplanade de Tourette. Said it would be there in an hour. The pick-up. Would it be open, the big voice boomed, but Andy apologised, did not know, called her and started to walk away. She came to him.

‘Where were they looking for?

‘Some cathedral.’

‘You showed him, knew where it was?’

‘They’d been arguing, and there are two cathedrals.’

They walked on. He thought it a cleverly done brush contact, as it had to be, and Gough had done the switch in voice level correctly. Had to have been clever. The boy was easy to recognise. The arm, maybe a polio or maybe botched surgical intervention after a break, hung awkwardly, and it was easy to recognise his weight and shape and the same clothing as the night before under a light in the square below the hotel window. At the top of the hill was a jewellers, and he led her inside, and murmured close to her ear.

‘I don’t know where you’re leading me, Zed, don’t want to know. I still say it, you are more special than anyone I have been with before…’ Not saying much because that field was bloody near empty, but the dose was well poured and had a high sincerity content. And he needed her trust, and her confidence. ‘… Won’t take a refusal. Something to remember Marseille by.’

It was 150 euros, a thin gold bracelet of fine links, simple and understated and a private type of gift: it would sail through on his expenses at the end of the assignment. Inside, the manager had seen the pair of them and had tried to lever Zed over towards the windows where the rings were. He paid, fastened it on her wrist, and the light lit the gold chain. And the pendant on her chest shone, markers of his deceit. They went out, and crossed the road and she laughed again at the sign of the monster giraffe and the little one… in his mind was the battering of what seemed a drum beat. Something inevitable but he did not know what.

His wife was in uniform, that of the Municipal Police, assigned that day to an area of Marseille that was affluent, for the smart crowd from the blocks lining the Avenue du Prado. She had put on her pistol, and her belt, from which was slung the kit – cuffs, canisters of gas, a baton – and asked him, from the door of the apartment, the familiar question.

‘Are you home for supper tonight?’

‘Don’t know, don’t see why not.’

‘Anything special – I am just going to schools. Talk about drugs. You?’

‘Planning – a buffoon from Paris is coming. A protection screen. We’re talking about it.’

‘Those people from England, did they…?’

‘No idea, maybe they went home.’

He was told what to take out of the freezer so that it would have defrosted for their dinner, together or separately. She closed the door after her. He’d have five minutes more with the newspaper, then follow her out, go to his meeting. An interesting day or a dull one. ‘Samson’, the executioner, had no preference.

‘You know something?’

‘I know plenty.’

‘Heh, you mess with me, Tooth… My difficulty, I think more of the past than the future. I am comfortable in the past, but the future confuses me.’

‘I tell you, Crab. You talk shit.’

‘My past is good. I am a success, respected. I have a big house, men duck their heads to me. I have around me what could be called ‘‘the best police force that money can buy’’, you like that. That’s good, yes? As you have, Tooth… To get there, some men lost their lives, others have a worse limp than me… But, what happens next is a concern to me. What’s round the corner.’

They were on the patio. The wind had shifted, coming now more from the south, and the rugs over their knees were already layered with the fine sand that blew in from the Sahara deserts. Tooth’s man had brought coffee for them, and biscuits.

‘It is big shit that you talk, Crab – did you sleep poorly?’

‘A bad sleep, and a bad dream.’

‘Do I have to hear why? You playing at a penitent in a confessional?’

‘No. The dream is personal. I…’

There was shipping on the horizon, heavy enough to ride the storm, and other craft that went in and out of the docks, but precious few fishing boats. He understood the fear that the French gangster, his friend, created. Could see why the Arab had bloody near drowned rather than face him and cough up a story of failure. A hard man, a hard face, and the tinted glasses masked nothing. Himself, he had, mildly put, lost the appetite for it since the dream.

‘You have cold feet, Crab. My old friend of many years, a gang boss thought to be fearless, ruthless, and now old and frightened. It is hard to understand you – what was the dream?’

‘Personal, mine alone.’

‘What was the fucking dream, Crab?’

‘I shouldn’t have spoken, forget it.’

‘I dream sometimes, my old friend, of the first time I killed a man and the first time I had a girl. I tell you, they are not bad dreams. Killed many and screwed many, and none is a nightmare. Spit it, Crab.’

‘About what happens…’

‘A riddle,’ he mimicked. ‘You say ‘‘what happens’’. It’s monkey talk. It means?’

‘My problem. I started it. Knew what I was doing, and called you, and you did the graft, put it in place.’

‘Good to hear from a valued friend. Of course I helped. You asked and I answered. Tell me – ‘‘what happens’’ – in plain talk.’

‘They don’t have weapons like that, not where it’s going. Not where a flood of them are ending up. It is mayhem, it’s death, pain. An automatic rifle takes killing to a different level. Way up. It is something bad, what the dream said.’

Almost a sneer, like their mutual love affair was failing. ‘You should take a pill, Crab, and then sleep without a dream.’

‘It was just a dream – sorry, Tooth, rude of me – only a dream. First time I killed a guy and first girl I shagged… The guy was a dealer, didn’t want to clear a debt. He screamed, God, like – I’m told – pigs in an abattoir, a hell of a noise, so much blood. He went into concrete, foundations of new houses. The girl was good, both of us fourteen. I reckon she liked my pants, City – Manchester City pants – better than what was inside them, she said, cheeky little bitch. I’ve not had many that were better, and she was the first.’

‘You all right now? Don’t like a friend to be unsure, an old friend.’

‘I’m good now, thanks.’

‘Don’t want an old friend going weak.’ Not spoken like a threat, gently said.

‘Have to keep telling myself ‘‘I just do business’’, keep saying it. Can we talk about something else, Tooth?’

‘Like the second killing or the third, like the second girl or the fourth, fifth, sixth…?’

Two hands met, veined and calloused, the stains of sun damage blotching the skin, but each strong, fearsome. And they were laughing. Tooth told him when they would leave to do the bit of ‘business’. Crab wanted the exchange done, the transfer completed, himself out of this fucking place. Should never have come, knew it, and kept on laughing because that was expected of him. Two old friends, raddled with age, each clutching the other’s hand, and laughing because that might kill his dream. And home by that evening and back where he was safe.