The Contract

Johnny in fawn slacks, and his anorak zipped over his sports shirt and trainers on his feet and the boots bulky in his bag – as it should be for a tourist. They walked up the staircase to Platform Eleven. Like a bloody morgue, Carter thought. Midnight on any station in Europe, home for creeps and queers and misfits, like a bloody desert because only the parasites have business on a station when the clock shows past midnight.

Carter shuddered, held his arms across his chest. A few of the platform benches were occupied, there was the tramp of the feet of the military police patrol of the Bundeswehr, the trilling clatter of a kicked soft drink can, but overall a great quiet in shadowed light. Carter took the mood of Johnny, noticed the tightness of the skin on his cheeks and the way that he fidgeted with his hands. He kept his peace.

The Warsaw express came and went, east to west. Johnny hardly seemed to notice it, didn't turn his shoulders to watch the disembarking passengers and the surveillance of the Bundesgrenzschutz on those who had crossed through and now smiled with an ebullience as if the grey life was however temporarily behind them. Into the early, soft hours of Wednesday morning. Just a few days, Johnny, you'll be fine… Fussing like an old woman, Henry Carter, and Johnny was on the bench beside him and his eyes were closed now and his breathing regular and his face gentle. Not a gentle creature, though, was he? Pulled the bloody trigger on the Armalite, hadn't he? Dropped the kid, killed the girl, slaughtered her. And his mother would have been proud to have known him, proud with her chest swollen at the dosage. Her Johnny in a hedgerow with a high velocity rifle at his shoulder and a round in the breach and his finger curled on a cold trigger. Well, somebody has to bloody well do it, someone has to scrape the dog shit off the pavements, someone has to make life clean and sweet smelling for the wife of Henry Carter, and the daughter of Henry Carter…

The loudspeaker announcements came fierce and sharp.

Just before two o'clock and Carter could have done with the pullover folded in his bag.

The impending arrival of the express from Cologne. Service D441.

For Wolfsburg, Obeisfelde, Magdeburg and Zwickau. Carter shook Johnny's arm lightly, saw him start into wakefulness and brush a hand across his eyes as if to clear a veil.

The big engine edged towards them. The coaches with the livery paint of the railway system of the Federal Republic. The scraping of brakes and steam hissing from between carriages.

'All right, Johnny?'

A wry grin for an answer. Johnny stood up, seemed to shake himself and with his bag in his hand walked across the platform to the carriage door. Carter opened it for him.

'Take care of yourself…' Carter said, a little stammer in his voice.

Johnny climbed the steps, and there was a frail grin of amusement and then he was gone along the corridor and looking for a compartment to himself. Carter searched along the line of windows, and found where he had settled. He hurried to stand underneath Johnny. Like a father and son, exchanging farewells, as if their next meeting would be long postponed. Carter strained to see into the shadow of Johnny's face.

'I'm an old fool, I know that… but be careful.'

'You worry too much,' a softness from Johnny.

'Probably… Take care, Johnny. And don't forget the whole team is with you.'

Johnny laughed. 'Don't walk under a bus,' he said.

The guard's whistle shredded Carter's thoughts. The train began to move, slowly at first, then catching its speed, drawing away, opening the gap.

Johnny waved, once and briefly. The window was drawn shut.

Carter stood and watched the going of the train till the red tail lights were lost to his view. An old fool, that was what he called himself.

Pathetic, and he was about right, wasn't he?

He went back to his bag that he had left beside the bench and set off for the staircase and the change of platform that he would need to catch the first train of the morning to Helmstedt.

An hour to wait, an hour alone with his thoughts of Johnny.

Charles Mawby presumed it to be an old custom of military hospitality and rejoiced in the provision of a cut glass decanter, liberally filled with whisky, on the dressing table of his bedroom. His day clothes folded and put on a chair, wearing his pyjamas and dressing gown, he poured himself an ample tumbler. He would brush his teeth later.

It had been a fine evening, with good company and good conversation.