The Network - Jason Elliot [107]
I will myself to be invisible, merging into the flow of the others in the hope that I’ll look like a member of the group. We go through security and form a line ahead of the final passport check. I’m nearly there. I shuffle forward, looking at the ground, not daring to look up and draw attention to my face. But I can’t resist a glance around to see what’s happening, and it’s at this precise moment, as if the very atoms in my surroundings have conspired to make it happen, that the uniformed immigration officer looks straight at me.
I turn my eyes away, but he calls out to me, and suddenly the world begins to slow down as if I’m in a dream, and I feel my heartbeat pushing up into my throat as he calls out again, tapping his pen on the kiosk to get my attention.
I pretend not to notice and turn towards the doors, wondering if there are any police between me and the exit, and whether I can make it to the taxi before things turn noisy. But the woman ahead of me in the queue, an earnest American in a safari hat, is tapping on my shoulder to get me to turn around, and now it seems the whole line is staring at me.
I’m trying hard to disguise my own dread. I wonder if I can manage the sprint to the doors, but my leg won’t take it. I force a bewildered smile to my face. The official is waving me impatiently towards him. I feel as if I’m standing above an open trapdoor and about to be forced to take a step forward. I walk to the booth, where he’s pointing his finger energetically at me. It’s only then I realise dimly that I’ve seen him before, and that it’s the same officer who stamped my passport when I first entered the country.
He takes my passport, opens it at a random page without even looking for my entry visa, and brings down the exit stamp with a thump. He doesn’t notice that I have a different name and nationality now. He points to himself and then to me, and with the same gleaming smile that flashed at me on the day of my arrival, says, ‘My friend.’
Then he returns my passport to me, and the pen I have earlier lent him, and waves me on.
12
The Firm likes its staff to live nearby. It makes them less dependent on public transport in case of ‘incidents’ that mean they have to get to work in a hurry. North or south of the river doesn’t make much difference these days, and the stigma attached to living near the Firm’s former headquarters at Century House in dreary north Lambeth has been thoroughly exorcised. So Kennington is fine; anywhere near the Oval but south of the gasworks is desirable; Fentiman Road is very nice if you can get it; and the quiet streets off St George’s Drive in Pimlico are rather perfect.
Seethrough, I now discover, lives a little further away, but at under three miles it’s not so far as to refute his claim that he sometimes jogs to work. According to the BT engineer I rely on for the occasional discreet enquiry, he lives a stone’s throw from St Luke’s Church in Chelsea, and it’s here that I wait for him in Gerhardt with some food and a Thermos and enough paracetamol to keep the pain in my leg under control.
His house doesn’t have a garage so he has to walk from his car to the front door, and it’s 9 p.m. when I finally catch sight of him. He’s moving at a pace that makes it painful for me to catch up, and his hand is just moving to the keys in his pocket when he senses the presence of someone behind him. As I reach him, he turns