Timebomb : A Thriller (9781468300093)

  ‘Won’t hold you, young man. I’m told you did a fine job, beyond the duty call … These guys hated his guts because he was a stickler for detail and commitment, and had a bad way with idiots. These guys, goddam hypocrites all of them, and doing the hand-wringing … They told me a little of what happened – I envy you. I have a powerful amount of envy for you for being there and having done it well. He’s better where he is than where I am. A retirement home, Delray Beach in Florida, is a degree of hell. Won’t keep you … Ever in Delray Beach, ever on Angelo Drive, ever by the Corpus Christi Retirement Home, come see me and we’ll go get a beer. My privilege to have met you, sir.’

  A young woman had her hand outstretched. ‘My name’s Alison and I’m from the crowd on the other side of the river. No one wanted to come because Mr Lawson was loathed so I picked up the ticket. I didn’t turn up because of him, it was you I wanted to meet. I think I owe you an apology, Mr Carrick, a big one.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘I do liaison between our lot and theirs. We helped with the background stuff right at the beginning, and your name came up as a staffer for Goldmann. Then our computers threw out that you were funny – the National Insurance and the driving licence had been doctored. Our gear can do that. I told Mr Lawson you were an undercover, SCD10. I chucked you in it. Isn’t that worth an apology?’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not.’

  ‘Are you about through here?’

  ‘Leave’s finished, and I’m due back in my office. First time back there after … Yes, I could be finished here.’

  ‘Going to walk over the bridge?’

  ‘Sounds right.’

  In the line was the man he had kicked in the groin on the City pavement, and three others who had been on the banks of the Bug. He went past them, as if they didn’t exist, and up the side-street that led to the bridge.

  The sun was on his back and it warmed his face. He slipped off his coat and hitched it over his shoulder. He didn’t think he needed an apology. He told her, Alison, as they walked across the river bridge, about a forest of birches and pines, and of the place where a revolt had been fashioned. He spoke of a camp that was demolished and how the fences and watchtowers, minefields and barracks huts had been buried and hidden, and of the darkness under the trees, the despair that still lived, and the hate. He did not talk about the events and incidents of Haystack, but of a track called the Road to Heaven that ran between newly planted pines, and of the plank-faced homes that had once been the Swallow’s Nest and the Merry Flea, and of a great mound that was formed of incinerated bodies.

  Carrick said, ‘If you haven’t been there and haven’t heard the stories, it isn’t possible to understand the present. It’s about the camp, the killing there and the escape. What happened is rooted in that past. So, I go back to work. I forget it. I forget where I was and who I was with, and what person I became. I have to. I was there and thought I walked and ran with them.’

  They were at the end of the bridge. He realized then that she had hold of his hand and his cheeks were wet.

  ‘Will you be all right?’

  ‘I’ll be fine. It never happened. I don’t need your apology.’

  She loosed his hand, and went right, along the Embankment and towards the Box 500 building. Carrick blinked, wiped his face on his sleeve, and set out with a good stride towards his Pimlico office. He killed the faces that had clamoured in his mind. Best to believe it had never happened.