Free A Line in the Sand by Gerald Seymour

on foot into the centre of Nottingham. Into a
    trailed
    camping-equipment shop. The detective sergeant had fingered
    er coats while the target had selected then paid cash for
    wet-weath
    a
    ag, heavy-soled walking-boots, wool boot socks,
    sleeping-b
    camouflage
    trousers and tunic that were ex-military stock. He might have been old, near to retirement, but the detective sergeant still registered et's height and the size of the boots, which were at least
    his targ
    two
    o small for the target's feet.
    sizes to

    All the university cities in the country had a pair of Branch men
    attached to the local police station. Used to be Irish work, not
    any
    longer. It was the Islamic thing that preoccupied the detective
    sergeant and his partner, Iranian students studying engineering,
    physics, chemistry, metallurgy, and the zealots who recruited among the
    campus kids. It was work for a dozen men in this city alone, not
    for
    two poor bastards. The Security Service provided the names and
    addresses, and bugger all else, leaving the detective sergeant to
    tramp
    the streets and type the bloody reports.

    The target was careful and had twice ducked into shop doorways and let
    him come past. His shoes, new, hurt his feet, and he was bursting for
    a leak. The detective sergeant was trained in surveillance, but it 55

    was
    damn difficult to make the tail when it was down to one man. They had
    ended in a bookshop. He'd eyed the paperback thrillers while the
    been searching, very specific, on shelves across the shop.
    target had

    ot had this man before.
    He had n
    There were usually so many targets
    that they came round on a rota every four weeks or so. It was only months since the young fellow, wet behind the ears and up from
    three
    London, had given the sparse detail of the Security Service interest in
    Yusuf Khan, Muslim convert, formerly Winston Summers. One of many, the
    s under surveillance around
    tall, wide-shouldered Afro-Caribbean wa
    e
    on
    day in thirty, nine in the morning to seven in the evening. He did not
    r at the university was on the
    know why this thirty-year-old cleane
    st
    li
    for sporadic surveillance... His was not to reason why, his but to do
    and bloody die and bugger all glory for his pinched feet and aching r.
    bladde

    had taken a book, gone quickly to a vacant cash desk, and
    The target
    paid in notes and loose change before heading out into the street.
    The
    detective sergeant was good at his work and conscientious. He
    checked
    s.
    the shelves where the target had searched: UK Travel and Guide
    The
    man was out on the street now. A woman was at the cash desk, with a
    child in tow, choosing a gift-token card. He'd lost half a minute e'd used his shoulder, shown his warrant card, and demanded
    before h
    of
    the assistant what book her previous customer had purchased. The
    dumb
    girl had forgotten, had to check back in the point-of-sale computer.

    He stood on the pavement outside the shop and cursed.

    ow arcades led off both sides
    He could not see his target and narr
    of
    the main street.

    He swore.
    56

    He quartered the arcades and the precinct, checked the bus stops and cinct, but could not find the bobbing head he sought, or the
    the pre
    s
    bright-coloured shopping-bags. As his son would say, when hi
    rthday
    bi
    came round, when the detective sergeant had to dig in his wallet to pay
    for the amplifier or the tuner, "Pay peanuts, Dad, and you get s." They paid for one man to do a surveillance once every
    monkey
    thirty
    y eleven o'clock in the morning the monkey had lost its
    days and b
    target.

    He would find a place to leak, then walk back to the dismal street of
    little terraced houses to sit in his car, fashion the excuses,

    compose his report, and have not an idea why Yusuf Khan, formerly
    ummers, had purchased boots, camouflage trousers and tunic
    Winston S
    too
    m, heavy wool socks, a sleeping-bag, and a guidebook to
    small for hi
    the
    rth Suffolk.
    coastal area of no
    What the policeman knew