The Corporals Wife by Gerald Seymour

Author:Gerald Seymour
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
Published: 2013-06-26T16:00:00+00:00

It was not in its place. The picture of the man who had been hanged was gone, as was the photograph, head and shoulders, of the officer who had died in Afghanistan. The rugs on the floor were removed, the soft chairs, and the bed on which he should have lain with her, but hadn’t.

There were footsteps on the stairs behind him.

Nothing remained. Everything had been replaced. On one wall there was a life-size portrait of Imam Khomeini, on another a magnified photograph, in a plain frame, of the Supreme Leader.

The two old men were in the doorway. A light was switched on and his torch dulled. Engine parts littered a long bench that straddled the room, and the floor around it showed the stains of engine oil and lubricants. One of the old men carried a wrench, the other a lump hammer. They had dead eyes and showed him no recognition.

A question was put to him: ‘Are you a thief?’

A second question: ‘What have you come to steal?’

Kourosh was a junior official in a unit that worked on the surveillance of state enemies, a married man, father of a child with bronchial difficulties. He was not an adulterer because she had refused to allow him the final moments of the sin. What had he come to steal? A motor-scooter wheel, a spark plug, a wing-mirror, a chain? He had brought her a necklace that she never wore, chocolates that he had never seen her eat, and a silver pen. He had given her a photograph of himself but it had never been displayed alongside those of the dead men. He had come to search for the necklace, the unopened box of chocolates and the pen, which was likely still in its padded case. He was an investigator: he understood searches and the work of the scientists who did forensic examinations of crime scenes, the gathering of DNA samples and the weight they carried in the eyes of the regime’s judges.

She would break before the will of the interrogators.

He had been to the barracks, had driven there in his old car, and attended a briefing: a team was to be put on stand-by and would be flown wherever it was required. A helicopter had been fired on. Reinforcements were on the move, with an armoured gunship helicopter. Road blocks hemmed in the fugitives. He had come to remove the items that might carry on them the traces of his sweat, skin and saliva. All gone. The room had been cleaned.

He thought they were laughing at him. They would deny knowledge of her and him.

He had left the barracks without permission. He was condemned, but in his own time and without the poison falling on his wife and son.

He knew of nothing to say. They stepped aside. He went out through the door and started down the steps. The light was switched off behind him and they followed. He had climbed the gate to enter the yard. Now it was pulled open for him.

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