The Walking Dead

'You're in danger, Mr Curtis, of being heard throughout the entire building.'

'He's got my money, and the fucking Nobbler has! We're fucking screwed.'

The barrister, Ozzie Curtis's 'brief', took the force of it and Nathaniel Wilson was thankful for a minimal mercy. He stood with his back pressed to the cell door: As if he was in a trance of disbelief, Ollie Curtis sat on the bed's vinyl-coated mattress, stared up at the barred window and had nothing to contribute, unlike his elder brother. The rant had started at the moment that the barrister and Wilson had been admitted by a poker-faced prison guard. That bastard would have been pissing himself once the door was shut and the bolt pushed across. Wilson wondered if it was the wasted money that hurt his client most or the knowledge that the jury — if it held together and stayed firm — would now, inevitably, convict.

The barrister said wistfully, 'The problem is, Mr Curtis — and it's his skill — that our judge was at pains to exonerate you from any blame. He could not have said more. Of course, when I was in with him, I did all the stuff about a jury inevitably being prejudiced and went for a mistrial, but I was turned down and he's covered that ground. Areas of appeal, should this trial go against you, are considerably reduced…Our judge knows his stuff.'

'And it will fucking go against us.'

'I fear so, Mr Curtis.'

'And that bastard took our money. What you going to fucking do, Nat?'

'Well, what I'm not going to do, Ozzie, is rush upstairs, use my mobile and have that traced. It's a difficult situation, Ozzie, needs thinking about.'

'I want that fucking man having good fucking grief, and you're going to fix it.'

Nathaniel Wilson did not answer. The barrister rapped on the door for it to be opened. He was not involved. Wilson was in the quagmire up to his damn neck. He thought of the man who sat in the back row of the jury box, with the stubble on his face and the sandals on his feet, and wondered how he could have been so stupid as to cross his client, take Ozzie Curtis's money, then play-act at being a hero. And his mind turned, with rare longing, to a life outside the little flat that he shared with his wife over the office. Ozzie, thank the good Lord, had retreated and now leaned his forehead against a wall of the cell, spent. Later, when he had the security of fire breaks to mask his communications, he would contact Benny Edwards. He reckoned the man who had turned in the money to be as great an idiot as any he had known, with 'good fucking grief' ahead of him.

The bolt was drawn back. The same impassive officer let him and the barrister out.

* * *

The door had opened and there had been the pad of footsteps in the corridor. Now Ibrahim Hussein heard the toilet flush.

The sounds broke the quiet of the cottage. Hours earlier, he had seen his leader leave by car and head away slowly up the track. Khalid had driven and the girl had been with them and Jamal. Later, Syed had wandered off along the track and would now have settled himself in the clump of trees half-way up it from where he would have a view of the cottage, and its approach, and be able to see across the fields round it. The guard, Ramzi, was slumped in an easy chair, reading a magazine featuring colour photographs of body-builders with grotesque muscles. The clock in the hallway, by the front door, ticked noisily. Time passed in the life of Ibrahim Hussein, from the town of Jizan in Asir Province, and he did not know how much would pass before he walked. He reached out for his Book and thought his hours were best occupied in learning better the printed pages. His door opened and he started. The Book fell to the carpet.

'Please, would you come with me?' The heavy-built body of the man filled the doorway. 'Would you, please, bring that jacket — the leather one — with you?'

He lifted it from the back of the chair and followed. He was led into the room at the far end of the passageway and had to duck his head under a blackened beam. The table was in front of him.

On the newspaper that covered it was a waistcoat. Pouches had been sewn over its pockets, and the sticks lay in them. Flies swarmed incessantly over plastic bags tied to the pouches with fine string and their buzzing overwhelmed the clock's ticking. In the bags he could see, among filth, heaps of close-packed nails, screws and ball-bearings. Wires ran from the sticks to two batteries, and another wire came. from the batteries and was linked to a button switch. He gazed at the waistcoat, in awe of it.

He was told briskly: 'Please, I want your arms out.'