Connections Page 25

  “It’s been a long day for me, too.”

  “I know.”

  He put on the television and started channel-hopping. “I’ll just try and get a view. I’ve been gone a long time.”

  “Yes. Do you mind if I go to bed? I’m knackered.”

  “Whatever,” he said.

  Fleur went wearily into the bedroom and got ready for bed. Ben appeared in the bedroom door, holding his script. “Give it a quick read,” he suggested.

  She took it, went to bed and lay down to read. She was surprised that Ben, a documentary producer, had elected to write a film script, even more surprised by the theme. It was the story of Ben’s own father, who, as a young man from a small Yorkshire mining community, had found himself in post-war Berlin as part of the occupying army. He’d fallen in love with a German girl; they’d parted. Later, Ben’s father had gone on to university on an ex-soldier’s grant and qualified as an engineer. He had never forgotten this early love affair. The script told the tale of a young man from a small village experiencing war, finding himself in a ruined city, suddenly in love with a bewildered, starving German girl. It was quite good. She just wondered if anyone, anywhere, would ever be persuaded to film it. But, she told herself, stranger things had happened.

  The television went off and Ben appeared in the doorway, “So?” he questioned.

  “It’s very good – very touching. I’m impressed,” she said. “I’m going to show it to Jess.”

  “Oh – Jess,” he said. “Well, that’s that, then. Forget it. She’ll hate it on principle.”

  “No she won’t. In any case, I have to show it to her. She’s my boss.”

  “So you’ve got no power at all?”

  “I don’t know. We’ve got a meeting on Monday to sort it all out. But basically Debs Smith is still in charge, Jess is her deputy and a woman called Jane Ray and I come next in the pecking order.”

  “All girls together. That’s me buggered then.” he said. “Especially with Jess in charge.”

  “Don’t be so gloomy,” she told him.

  He started taking off his clothes. “You liked it then?”

  “Oh yes, very much,” she said weakly.

  He got into bed and they spent the night not talking, not touching. Ben slept deeply, but Fleur’s own sleep was light and uneasy, broken by fragmentary dreams of Dickie Jethro sitting on the terrace in Barbados, of the computer course, into which, in the dream, Dominic’s dog Jason suddenly ran, of the playing field at her school where she stood in goal with her hockey stick, ball after ball getting by her into the back of the net.

  Ben was still asleep when Fleur got up next morning, still grimly determined to get to and finish her course, though every day’s incidents seemed to conspire to reduce its importance to her. Anyway, she thought, it might be best to disappear and let Ben find his feet while she was gone. He was embittered by the collapse of the business and the rebuffs he’d obviously experienced in the USA. Now, she thought, she’d have to ask Jess for an advance on her salary, otherwise they wouldn’t even be able to eat.

  She was opening her front door when Dominic appeared with Jason, who was now spending his days with the Simmonses next door. They’d grown very fond of Jason, who had almost reconciled them to his owner. Mrs Simmons said he was a godsend because he got her husband out of the house to take exercise.

  Dominic gave her both a broad smile and a penetrating look at the same time. What he saw seemed to delight him. “I’m late,” he said. “Got to run. What time will you be back tonight?”

  “Probably around seven,” she said.

  “See you then?”

  She nodded and went off down the steps. What had made him so bloody cheerful, she thought, considering she’d gone off last night with Ben, who’d just moved in with her? Then she got it – he could see from her face she and Ben had had a rotten evening, and that if they’d had sex at all it hadn’t been any good. He wasn’t doing anything about Ben’s arrival, not giving any signals, not talking to her about it, not trying to get at Ben. He was just watching and waiting, Fleur decided furiously. How cool you are, Dominic Floyd. How cool.

  The heating had failed at the college and she only had a drink and a bun for lunch because she was so broke. She tried her own phone but no one answered, so she left a message for Ben.

  Dominic phoned her at Camera Shake that evening and said, “As it’s Friday evening let’s meet. I’ll buy you a meal.” She agreed.

  “He’s getting half civilised,” Jess observed when Fleur told her. “Oh – I’ve got the pictures of that Russian. Adrian was looking through them last night. They know there’s a story there. They’re trying to find it. You can take them with you.”

  Twenty-Three

  A storm’s coming up here, cap’n. At dusk the old bloke with the Labrador had to retreat, clutching his cap to his head. His dog was nearly blown off its legs.

  This is the part where everyone gets desperate, including me. We’re getting to the end of January now, the weather horrible, cold, sleety, rainy, spring not far off but who by then could believe it would really come?

  When I walked into the office one day Veronica gave me a very funny look and announced that my old friend Mr Robinson was here to see me again. She said, “He was very insistent,” which meant he seemed like serious business.

  I went into the office and there was mild Mr Robinson sitting on my couch reading an arms magazine. He looked up.

  “Mr Robinson,” I said. “An unexpected visit.”

  “I do apologise,” he said. “It was a matter of some urgency, so I thought I’d just drop by and see if you were free.”

  “It must be a month since we met,” said I. “That was over two young men, Floyd and—”

  “Carter,” he supplied. “Joseph Carter.” He looked me straight in the eye. I could see why Veronica had let him in. He looked rich, he looked sensible and he looked as if he had a problem.

  “I’d like to talk to you,” he said. “But perhaps elsewhere?” He meant he didn’t want to be recorded in my office, which he would have been – though I always deny it to the clients, who sometimes believe me.

  I agreed and we went to a nearby pub and had a pint I don’t think either of us wanted.

  “It’s more necessary now to ease Floyd and Carter out of the way,” he told me. “If you can do it, I’m prepared to increase the offer to a quarter of a million.”

  Which would take my pay to £250,000 for what would amount to no more than a week’s work observing, planning, and finally eliminating the unlucky duo. The only reason for offering this large sum for the job was that Robinson needed to keep this business a secret for ever and ever, not have it traded off later by the perpetrator under other crimes to be taken into consideration, as a bargaining counter in getting a reduced sentence. He needed a man with a sterling record in keeping his mouth shut. I hoped they hadn’t indicated to him that they had me over a barrel regarding the Irish Farm business.

  Well, I was tempted. Who wouldn’t have been? First by the money, second by fear of the above. If I displeased Robinson, who was to say his friends in high places wouldn’t open the file on me?

  It was obvious Robinson didn’t intend to tell me anything about the subjects or what the business was all about. He just wanted someone nominated by other members of the club to eliminate two citizens without asking any questions.

  I drank half my pint in one swallow, taking time to think. Jethro’s daughter was somehow involved. Robinson might be working for Jethro. He fitted the profile of a banker: a restrained, careful, rational man who got on with the job. Not the vivid Jethro, hauling himself up by his boot straps, making deals here and there, but someone who might very easily be an associate of his. Trusty lieutenant, useful sidekick. And it figured, I realised, because Jethro was the bee’s knees as far as this administration was concerned – man of the people, entrepreneurial, making a profit for the state. Jethro was in and out of Number Ten Downing Street so regularly he w
ould be able to command the Pughs and Protheros of this world the way you or I buy a bus ticket.

  But I sensed Robinson was not happy about our meeting. He was in an exposed position. Careful Mr Robinson was doing something that had to be done in a hurry and not carefully enough. Which meant there was some kind of a rush on, a crisis. This was exactly the impression I’d got from Prothero.

  And it made me think. There’s nothing worse than being called in to help out with someone else’s crisis, and it’s a lot worse if you don’t know what it is.

  This was the point at which I realised with full force how trying to avoid the Irish Farm investigation had led me to this point: on the verge of obliging mystery men by conducting assassinations for no reason I knew of. I was truly up shit creek. I might have to get out. The marriage was over, the business would have to go, which was a pity, but worse things happen at sea and I was on my way. They’d held this Irish Farm business over me for long enough, I reckoned, but the threat was only good for as long as I wished to live and work in Britain. I was still hoping Robinson didn’t know about it.

  Robinson, meanwhile, was not pleased with me. He said, “This is a generous offer, Mr Hope.”

  I told him, “Very generous, but regrettably, I’ll have to turn it down. I don’t believe you will ever be prepared to break your employer’s confidence and tell me what all this is about. And I can’t proceed on that basis. You wouldn’t trust yourself to a surgeon who hadn’t told you what your complaint was or how he meant to deal with it. You wouldn’t go to law, I imagine, without disclosing all the facts of your case to your lawyer, uncomfortable as they might be. Not if you had any sense, that is.” And, congratulating myself on this little speech, I finished my pint and went to the bar to get another, to give him time to think.

  When I got back to the table he had thought. He gave me a sombre look, made sure we were still far away enough for the other drinkers in the pub – an office romance – not to overhear and stuck the knife in. “I didn’t want things to get to this point, Mr Hope, but I’m afraid you have little choice.”

  “Really?” I asked, knowing what was coming.

  He knew. “I’ve been told an associate of yours has given information about some events which took place in Sligo. It seems there’s some prospect of a trial. I’ve been asked to tell you that unless you co-operate they will take matters further. I gather there’s a chance you could be tried and sent to jail. I think you know what I’m saying, and I say it with reluctance, but that is your situation, Mr Hope.” He added, “I believe there is a witness prepared to come forward with evidence.”

  I took that in, trying not to show him what bad news this was.

  Ireland – hundreds of years of horrible violence, treachery and betrayal and even in these days of alleged peace and reconciliation I was still stuffed. Someone was prepared to turn Queen’s Evidence. Someone had turned me in to the British Government, which was aching to turn me in themselves. How fast patriotism becomes treason in this wicked world. Not that you could really excuse what happened on that Sligo farm. An indulgence from the Pope couldn’t excuse it.

  Who’d betrayed me? I thought I knew. When you want to find out who did anything to you it’s best first to look close to home, the closer the better. Yes – I thought I knew who’d done it.

  I became downcast and angry and said, “This is very bad, Mr Robinson. I’ll need time to think.”

  “I don’t think you have time to think,” he told me. “Pugh tells me the authorities are ready to act very quickly.”

  “How quickly?” I asked him.

  “I should say within days, rather than weeks,” he told me. “I’d prefer an answer now, but I suppose I could wait until tomorrow.”

  They weren’t going to give me any time to manoeuvre. “Mr Robinson,” I said weakly, “why do you want me? It’s obvious I’m reluctant, in spite of your generous offer. Wouldn’t you be better off with a willing associate?”

  “You come very highly recommended,” he told me. “And you’ve already studied the gentlemen we’re talking about.”

  “Let me put it another way,” I said. “Mr Pugh has a friend, Mr Prothero, and Mr Prothero has trained staff accustomed to this kind of work. I’m sure you could persuade him to get his men to help.”

  “Oh no,” said Mr Robinson, shaking his head. “That wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t do at all. I suspect he doesn’t want to involve himself, but, more importantly, I don’t want him involved. I believe if he were something might very well go wrong. I’m sorry, Mr Hope. You’re our man.” He added, “I must go now. I have another meeting. I suggest you think this over. I’ll ring you tomorrow morning, at ten, and discuss the final details, such as payment, time and place.”

  He said goodbye and we shook hands and off he went. I saw him raise his arm just outside the pub and get into the taxi he’d hailed.

  I sat there feeling angry and then got up and went straight to Pugh at the Home Office. I stood in front of his desk and I said, “I’ve just had a word with our friend Mr Robinson. He wants me to do a little job for him without asking any questions. I’m not going to ask you if you know about all this, because you won’t tell me. He says if I don’t do what he wants you’ll shop me over the Irish Farm business.”

  “I’m afraid that’s true, Sam,” said the little prick.

  I got up close to the desk and looked down at him. “Look, pal,” I said. “That was war. Not technically. We weren’t supposed to call it war. But privately nearly all of you did – especially your pals in the MoD and security forces. It was war – we won one or lost one – the Paddies were the enemy. That was your attitude, that was your terminology.” I was at breaking point, or trying to seem so.

  He looked at me sternly from behind his desk. “This is no longer entirely my affair. I’ve been told Mr Robinson’s needs have a high priority.” He was uncomfortable. So was Robinson. They all were. Funny.

  “So high you send civilians round to threaten me?” I said. “Why can’t your own security forces do what he wants? And how high does this fucker go?”

  “You can’t ask me that,” he told me.

  “But I am. How high?”

  “I’m not my own master,” he said.

  “When have you ever been?” I got him by the collar. “How high? How high?” I was yelling.

  “Sam – you’ve got to do this. Or you’ll end up in jail,” he was gasping.

  I heard the door open behind me so I knew a couple of reluctant men in uniforms were behind me, hoping nothing would happen. I stuck my face right into Adrian Pugh’s and said, “Who’s the informant, Pugh? Who is it?” He was choking but he knew his men were there. So he didn’t really mind rasping out, “Roderick. Your brother Roderick.”

  I dropped him back in his chair like a bag of spuds and he sat there, a bit red in the face, but pleased with himself for the blow he’d struck. I turned round and walked right out. I heard Pugh behind me saying to the guards, “Leave him.”

  I walked back through fog, which suited me. I didn’t want to look at anybody and I didn’t want anyone to look at me. I’d suspected it had been my own brother who’d betrayed me.

  There’d been five of us on that mission, Roddie being a replacement because Russ had broken his leg playing football on Wimbledon Common the day before. It had been too late to get one of the others so it was go short-handed or take Roddie, who was on leave from his regiment and said it would be a bit of fun. I hadn’t wanted it, but he was keen – so I let him come. The others – Kemal, Hoppo et al – were the dregs, the scrapings, and Roddie was my brother and a lieutenant in a bloody Guards’ regiment. Yet when the time came for someone to play Judas – guess who it was? He’d name the other blokes, too. The thought sickened me.

  I should say now what happened that night in Sligo.

  It was a nasty business, I’ll confess it. A mission which went bad; unnecessary deaths; an enquiry. And I’d been in command.

  And it all came down to R
uss rendering himself unfit for duty. If we’d been in the army I’d have had him up on a charge, but this was Sam Hope’s Irregulars, not the Queen’s Own Rifle Brigade.

  At nine on the night of the mission we were in enemy territory, twenty miles outside the Fermanagh border and therefore well into the sovereign state of Eire, where we shouldn’t have been. Which was why it was us and not the British Army. If we were caught we’d be described as a rogue element rather than an invasion.

  Our task was to take out two men army intelligence said were lying low on a farm west of Sligo who were wanted not just by the Brits but by the Irish too. It was Saturday, which was, the reports stated, when the young couple who ran the farm, who both had a Republican background, went to a dance in Sligo, taking their baby with them and leaving it with friends while they went off to enjoy themselves.

  We parked our vehicles under a hedge near the track which led up to the farm and, wearing black clothes and balaclavas, set off. A dog started barking as we got close to the farm and Scottie sped off at a low run to deal with it. We hiked on a bit faster and by the time he’d cut the dog’s throat – it was chained up – we were there.

  Goolies and Alibi went off to the right of the farmyard, where there was a big barn and a tractor shed, while I went inside with Scottie and Roddie to search the farmhouse. Roddie and I did the ground floor, while Scottie started upstairs. By then I didn’t think our targets were in the house. Then Roddie and I went up, fast, to join Scottie.

  Meanwhile there were no shots from the direction of the barn, so probably Goolies and Alibi hadn’t yet found anybody. They might have disposed of the targets quietly but we’d agreed that, the place being so remote, there was no real need for silent combat.

  There was an attic and Roddie and Scottie had boosted me up there when Kemal whistled from outside, the signal that someone was approaching. I got down from the attic fast and as we all moved to the top of the stairs I heard a vehicle grinding up the track to the farm. I still didn’t know what Goolies and Alibi were doing. I crouched at the top of the stairs with Scottie and Roddie and watched the young couple come in, he looking frightened, the woman, holding her baby, with her mouth open in shock. Kemal was behind them, holding his gun on them.