The Walking Dead

The boy who drove him had switched on the car radio, and music blared round him, but he did not care or complain. His thoughts had moved on: a narrow, shallow trench was dug in a dirt road used by patrols at night, used by Humvees with their lights off and with night-vision goggles on the drivers' faces — local men in the villages along the dirt road had been ordered not to drive a tractor or a car on it. A soft rubber pipe was laid in the trench, filled with water and sealed at one end. At the other were the fuse wires that connected when the pipe's water, under pressure from the weight of a Humvee, forced them together — they led to the bomb — and the trench was filled in, dust swept over it.

They hit the motorway. The biggest roads had construction work to reinforce the bridges for the enemy's main battle tanks: a factory turned out the concrete blocks that would strengthen them. Already hollowed out, blocks were brought to him from the factory and he packed the cavity spaces with high-grade explosive putty, then wired in the detonators. Labourers loyal to the struggle cemented in the blocks and routed the wires from them, and the remote firing triggers. He was starting his journey back to the world he knew. Would his friend, ever again, be beside him when the fire, the thunder and the smoke erupted?

The mood, melancholy, ached in him.

He was driven south and the rain slashed against the windscreen, cascading from the wipers. He imagined the reunion, him sweating from the heat, and his friend. A soft footfall, the creak of a door, the shadow coming into a room, the growl of the voice…and he thought that when, if, they met again he would weep, not contain his tears as he had done before getting into the car — and he cursed.

He and his friend, they should never have come…and he did not know where a trap was set and how it would be sprung.

The handler and his dog quartered the Rose Hill park.

He didn't do the discipline bit on these early-morning or late-afternoon exercise sessions. He let Midge run. The discipline would come in the day's work. Then he'd be obliged to have her on a short or long leash and under firm control. She was biddable when they were on duty and would not pull. For now, she ran and covered the grassland at pace. The rain mattered not a damn to her, but there was a heavy towel in the van and he would rub her down before he drove into the city.

She'd done business, and he'd used a plastic bag to clear up after her. The handler's mind was far away. He saw her, careering off to his left, but did not bother to call her back to him. She, and he, had another ten minutes of freedom before he turned his back on Rose Hill…He was thinking of how much he would have to spend on a reliable mountain bike for his daughter on her twelfth birthday, and how long it would be before she grew too tall for it to be of further use.

Abstracted, he followed the line his dog took. He saw the boy on the bench…Pink was his daughter's favourite colour…An Asian boy, his head hidden in his hands…Who'd ever heard of a kid having a pink bicycle?…There was an Asian community in the Normanton district's warren of terraced homes, a century and more old, but he seldom saw their kids here…If she couldn't have a pink bicycle, perhaps green or blue would be more suitable…His dog ran to the boy…More suitable and more easily bought, but was colour important? His dog sniffed at the boy's legs, and the handler focused on him. He thought the boy looked half drowned, as if he'd been hours out in the rain, maybe half the night, and the shoulders of his clothing clung to his big torso…Damn right, colour was important to. a girl on her twelfth birthday…and his spaniel had stretched up on her hind legs, had her front paws on the boy's knees, and her nose was at the hands that held the drooped head…Colour was critical to…The tail wagged with increasing energy, and the nostrils were in the hands.

He forgot the bicycle, and watched.

The dog should not have climbed half over a boy sitting and minding his own business on a bench, and probably the boy had pawmarks over the thighs of his jeans now. He tugged at the string round his neck that held the high-pitched whistle, but the dog was now off the boy, sitting in front of him and barking furiously. Extraordinary that a little creature, his spaniel, could make that cacophony of noise.

For a moment, the handler had the whistle at his lips but he did not blow. The dog's barking would have raised the dead in a cemetery. The rain had come on harder, and he would need the few extra minutes left to him to towel down her coat. The handler thought the spaniel was behaving as if she was out on a training exercise.