The Contract

'The risk that you take is not with yourselves, it is with my father and my sister. You endanger them.'

Carter gazed into the small and now frightened face of the boy. 'We think that we have minimised the risk to them. Everything has been thought of, most carefully.'

'Johnny is the man who is going to see my father in Magdeburg?'

'Johnny will talk to him.'

'What will he say to him? How will he persuade him to make the journey?'

Carter sighed and his composure was diminished. It was not the path the conversation should have followed. There should not have been the gun rattle of questions, only gratitude and wonderment was wanted from the boy.

' I don't know the details, Willi,' Carter said. Evasive and with his confidence derailed. 'That's Johnny's side and Mawby's. But without you, Willi, the chance slackens. I'm very serious…'

'Without me the attempt will fail, or without me my father will not be persuaded to make the journey. Which, Mr Carter?'

Little bugger, clever question. Carter could have slapped him. He held himself, dragged at the reins of self-restraint. 'If you ever want to see your father again you do exactly what we tell you during the next week.

Everything, to the word, to the letter, without question. Understand this, Willi, we'll try to bring him out anyway, we'll make that attempt. If you obstruct us then we may fail, if you help us then we have a better chance.

It's very simple, Willi.'

'Why do you want my father? He is an old man. Why do you ask him to do this?' Like a cat with a field mouse, the boy would not release the meat from his mouth. 'You threaten him, why? You endanger him, why?'

'You're his son, I should have thought you'd be grateful for what we're doing.'

'I'm not a fool, Mr Carter,' the boy's voice was rising. Behind him George had eased up from the bench, folded a newspaper and placed a stone over it to save the pages from the wind, and was coming across the lawn. 'I'm not an idiot. You do not do this for charity, you do not do it for me. Perhaps even for him you do not do it. Why can you not leave him to live in peace for his last years?'

'Then you'll never see him again.'

'You make a bait of me, you make me as a tethered goat. I am the bribe that you offer him…'

'You said that he loved you.'

'I said that he loved me. I answered your question, I did not know why you asked…'

Carter gripped at Willi's arm, trying to turn him, trying to succour him.

Earnest and encouraging. 'We've been thorough, Willi, as thorough as possible. There's no danger to your father. He's going to be safe, and he's going to be with you.'

The boy shrugged the hand away, was at his full height and the colour glowed in his cheeks.

'Who gives you this right to tempt and taunt an old man with the love of his son? What authority do you have to chance the wrecking of my father's life?'

'Without your help we may fail…'

'You're evil, all of you. You and Johnny and… the man who comes and you all crawl to.'

'With your help we may succeed.',

The tears ran fast now on the face of the boy. 'You play a game with the love of an old man.'

'It won't be like that, lad.' Carter hated tears, was always terrified when his wife wept and he was useless and clumsy and unable to comfort. He tried to put his arm on Willi's shoulder and was pushed away. 'It won't be like that, I promise you, Willi.'

Deftly Carter waved George back. He bent down and lifted the handle of the hoe and passed it again to the boy. Then with his fork he started to dig at the earth that he had trampled flat and beside him he heard the scraping of the hoe and the thud of clotted weeds hitting the walls of the wheelbarrow.

It was a gloomy pilgrimage for the Prime Minister.

The West of Scotland was traditional misery for the politician in office. More of a disaster than a development area. The crowds that had come to see him heckled, the press that had questioned him carped at his answers, the managements that he had met dropped their heads and spoke of bleak forecasts for the future. And damn near a whole week to be spent there. He had walked through shipyards, through shopping centres, through engineering works and with each day he had believed less and less in the buoyant words of his speechwriters.

There were three cars and two police motorcycle outriders in the convoy that drove at speed for the new housing development at Cumbernauld.

His speech in reply to the Mayor's welcome rested typed in his jacket pocket. The red boxes of government papers were in the car behind him that carried the Downing Street team of civil servants. He could sit back in his seat, spaced from his PPS by the arm rest and talk without constraint, confident that at least here he was saved from badgering dispute.

'It's the shame of being away for so many days, the diary is clogged solid when we're back in London,' the Prime Minister murmured. 'Is the weekend clear?'

'Not so as you'd notice, sir. We're hoping to get you off to Chequers after lunch on Friday…'