Fragile State by David Turner

Author:David Turner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: murder, suicide, war, bosnia, thriller, Australia, Scotland, friendship, betrayal
ISBN: 9781849892186
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2010
Published: 2010-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

I strode briskly through the rusty relic that was the park gate and into the leaf-cushioned street, almost slipping on the autumnal debris that littered the pavement like brown, rotten ice. As expected the car was there, the Intelligence Service regular-issue Rover. A door opened, I hesitated briefly but what choice did I have?

Inside the mobile cell I was met by two of my escorts from the previous day. I noted disapprovingly that they wore the same suits. But then so did I.

Mr Smith Goes to...

– How are you? he asked. I knew him only as Smith. He was small and wiry but had a look of inherent toughness about him that registered somewhere in the back of my mind and made me fear him instinctively.

– How do you think I am? I hissed. – Why did you kill him?

They were both silent. My two companions looked at each other as though confused. They were crap actors; I’ve seen Richard Gere look more convincing.

– What happened? he asked.

– What do you mean what fucking happened? You killed him, you bastards.

– Mr Mc-

– And what about my fucking flat, whose body –

I saw the blow before I felt it, but could not react in time. A slight sting to my cheek, not hard, just enough to shut me up, a reminder of my perilous position. At that moment I caught sight of myself in the rear-view mirror; days of growth, unkempt hair stuck to my head like a helmet, and the drawn pale look of the seriously ill or the newly deceased; my resistance fled in the face of the inevitable.

– I’m sorry but you were ranting, Smith said. His tone was placatory, his smile almost genuine and I had the uncomfortable realisation that he had enjoyed hitting me, seeing the shock on my face, the pain, the fear; it made his job worthwhile. All those nights of sedentary surveillance and tedious close protection, days of boring paperwork and mind-numbing security checks, but it was worth it for this, to feel the power and inflict the pain.

– It wasn’t us, he continued in an avuncular manner. – We spotted the body before dawn. We suspect he was killed before he arrived at the park and dumped in the pond during the night. We decided to let you go through with the meeting in case someone would take his place. We didn’t tell you in case you started acting suspiciously. Anyway, you would’ve just worried about it.

– You didn’t think you might be putting me in danger?

– No chance. We were watching you.

Lying bastards, I thought. They weren’t watching me very closely, or they would have known that I had been in the park since four, waiting. And, from what I knew of dead people, from television, no rigor mortis means a recent kill. So he had been dumped in the pond that morning. But how? Had I fallen asleep? How could they have gotten the body in the pond without me seeing it?

– Who is.

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