by Thomas Waugh
Home Front:
A James Marshal Thriller Omnibus
Thomas Waugh
Enough is Enough © Thomas Waugh 2019.
First published in 2019 by Sharpe Books.
Blood for Blood © Thomas Waugh 2021.
First published in 2021 by Sharpe Books.
This omnibus edition first published in 2021 by Sharpe Books.
Thomas Waugh has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
Table of Contents
Enough is Enough
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23. Epilogue
End Note.
Blood for Blood
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22. Epilogue.
Enough is Enough
Thomas Waugh
“Aren’t we all better dead?”
Graham Greene, The Quiet American.
“I’m fed up with all these untidy, casual affairs that leave me with a bad conscience.”
Ian Fleming, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
1.
Music played in the background. Dylan, again.
“Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re tryin’ to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded though we’re all doing our best to deny it…”
James Marshal peered out his living room window again and balled his hand into a fist. The ex-soldier’s square jaw grew even squarer as he compressed his teeth together. The easy half-smile, which he usually wore in public and in private, fell from his face, like shit sliding off a shovel.
The pair were there again, sitting in their car, parked at the end of his street. Wearing too much jewellery. Covered in too many tattoos. Scaring too many people, inside their own homes. Selling too many drugs.
Enough is enough.
There was a police station around the corner, but it may as well have been a hundred miles away. The police were probably too busy investigating the latest hate crime on Twitter, or building a case against a deceased celebrity, to address what was happening under their nose. It would have been funny, if it wasn’t true. Or perhaps it was funny, because it was true, Marshal wryly considered.
They were, most likely, Albanians. He had read the odd article recently about how they had taken control of drugs and prostitution in Glasgow. And now they were looking to expand their activities in London. There was an ongoing turf war in Walworth and Camberwell. The Albanians versus the West Indians. Petty crime was up. Drug-related deaths were up. Stabbings and shootings were up. Human trafficking was up. Everything was up, Marshal judged, including stealth taxes and his cholesterol levels.
This was the third time, in a week, that the two men had sat at the end of his street. Every now and then a customer would approach the car and a wad of notes would be exchanged for a bag of weed or coke. Customers ranged from tracksuit wearing skanks to city workers in designer suits. The Albanians reminded Marshal of the Taliban, back in Helmand. They were akin to vermin. Once they established a foothold in an area, it was almost impossible to get rid of them. But, like vermin, they needed to be exterminated. Despite not always winning the battles – and losing the war – Marshal had felt purposeful as a soldier. Killing the enemy – and protecting his fellow soldiers – felt good. Right. Perhaps if he was able to make a difference here, it would serve as a penance for the defeat over there. Bombings in Kabul, the closing down of schools and the executions of homosexuals were all up over there. The former 3 Para Captain still experienced a bitter taste in his mouth when he thought about the war in Afghanistan – as much as he had tried to wash the taste away with copious amounts of vodka and whisky over the years.
He breathed out, or rather sighed. Marshal was forty. Life was supposed to begin at forty, or so the saying went. His face was still handsome, but looked lived-in. Life had chipped away at his smooth, marble features. Afghanistan, or London, had aged him. Ground him down. His eyes were a little bloodshot. His bark-brown hair was dusted with a little grey.
“…Name me someone that’s not a parasite and I’ll go out and say a prayer for him…”
Marshal was wearing a navy-blue linen suit, striped white shirt and brown Oxford brogues. He looked better than he felt. He was about to head out, to have dinner with Alison, a book editor he had met at a party a fortnight ago. This would be their third date. He had slept with her on the second. It was likely this would be their last date though, Marshal judged. He didn’t feel much, if anything, for her. They had no real future together. It was best to end things now. Be cruel to be kind. What was the point of lying to her, or himself? There was enough deceit in the world, without him adding to the surplus. Marshal wanted to have a nice meal with Alison this evening, and he hoped they might even have sex again, if she took the break-up well.
The news was playing on the TV, but the sound was mute. Marshal didn’t care for inane or partisan commentators, filling his flat with lies or orthodoxy. Rather he just liked to read the straplines along the bottom of the screen, informing him about the bare bones of events. Not that he cared much about most events, or “human interest” stories. “Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion,” Marshal often thought to himself, quoting Democritus. If only people could laugh at themselves more – or shrug their shoulders at the causes they cared about. Or told people they cared about. The world might then be a more pleasant place.
If Marshal was able to sleep with Alison tonight, he thought it best to do so at her apartment. He needed to clean his. Vesuvius-shaped mounds of ash and cigarette butts filled a couple of large ashtrays in the room. A half-empty bottle of vodka lay on the floor, next to an empty tumbler. A plate, caked with takeaway curry from the night before, sat on the coffee table, next to a curled-up copy of Gun Monthly.
A bookcase, brimming with Penguin Classics (Tolstoy, Balzac, Dostoyevsky, Graham Greene…) stood next to one overladen with military history titles. On the opposite side of the room stood further bookcases, one dedicated to medieval history and the other to the ancient world. His bedroom housed a series of bookshelves devoted to crime/thrillers, poetry and philosophy books. Contemporary novels and non-fiction titles concerning events of the last fifty years were conspicuous by their absence. Along with several bookcases, the room was also home to a few pieces of oak and mahogany furniture (some were antique, some were just old). A series of character jugs (of Henry V, Wellington, General Wolfe and Churchill) sat in the same display case as a series of plates depicting the story of Operation Chastise – the Dambusters Raid. Further objects of militaria, dotted throughout the room, could be found in the shape of a pair of nineteenth-century duelling pistols, a replica medieval sword and a Winchester rifle, mounted on the wall. The musty smell hanging in the air gave the room a further sense that the house could have belonged to a fusty Professor or retired Major – or, if one observed the portrait of Nelson and an antique naval telescope, a retired Admiral.
>
Marshal took another long drag on his cigarette and turned his attention to the night sky, rather than the street below. The horizon glowed like embers, or the flesh of a peach. The light was fading. He was reminded of his time as an altar boy, as he doused out the torch candles, plunging the church into darkness. There was light in the darkness, however, in the form of the votive candles. His mother always gave him money, to put into the box, light one and say a prayer. She was a good, devoted, Catholic. Unfortunately, he couldn’t say the same about himself. His mother had died when he was young. When she was young. Too young. Marshal still kept her Bible in the drawer, although he couldn’t recall the last time he opened it. He was just six years old when she died. Mary Marshal often counselled her son, that “love can conquer all.” Unfortunately, it couldn’t seem to cure her cancer. He remembered her taking him to church and teaching him to swim. He remembered how she looked as pale as candlewax in the hospital, at the end. It hurt her throat each time she spoke, but still, she told her son how much she loved him. Marshal also remembered how angry he was at God for taking her away. The world was a worse place without her. Perhaps he was still angry at God for taking her too soon. At best God was indifferent. Why shouldn’t he be indifferent to God in return?
Marshal glared down at the street again. Unforgiving and unimpressed. Despite the descending gloom, the eagle-eyed soldier could still see the Albanians clearly. His blood was simmering. It would soon boil over. It wasn’t that Marshal couldn’t control his temper. Far from it. In the heat of battle in Helmand, the officer kept a cool head. His heartbeat quickened, but never accelerated out of control. Any adrenaline rush he experienced never caused him to snatch at a shot or issue the wrong order, as to fight or flight. Marshal owned more confirmed kills than any other officer in the regiment – and God only knows how many unconfirmed kills he secured. He believed that violence could be a force for good, that the world was a better place for him having removed a number of Taliban from it.
He glanced at his watch and yawned. He had stayed up late the previous evening. Marshal could often be found awake in the dead of night, reading. He had woken-up late and taken a walk around Kennington Park in the morning. He was tempted to go swimming, but the pool would have been busy. Marshal may not have agreed with Sartre’s communist sympathies. But he agreed with the writer’s sentiment, that “hell is other people.” Marshal found a quiet corner of a pub and had lunch and a few pints after his walk. His army pension, and a significant inheritance from his grandfather, meant that Marshal had no need to work. He lived comfortably. Even contentedly. He returned home to answer several emails and arrange his online food order for the week. He also ordered a first edition copy of The First Crusade by Runciman, before taking a nap. When he stirred, he downed a large whisky. It was whilst looking out the window, checking to see if it would rain, when Marshal spotted the car.
Enough was enough.
Marshal stubbed out his cigarette, picked up his keys and turned the music and television off.
Drug dealers. They thought themselves an immovable object. But they were about to encounter an unstoppable force.
2.
Marshal noticed a slight chill in the air, in contrast to the balmy temperature earlier in the day. The weather, like a woman, couldn’t make up its mind. He exited his block. He could have still turned left, instead of right, and avoided the car. But his course was, Ahab-like, set.
Marshal’s large tenement building ran down one side of the street. The Victorian brick building, part of the Pullens Estate, was old – which was part of the reason why Marshal had chosen to live there. Terracotta arches over the doorways and dozens of flowering window boxes increased the attractiveness of the block. The neighbourhood was a nice one, because of and not in spite of the fact that young professionals didn’t quite outnumber the working-class locals. At the opposite end of the street, to the Albanians, stood a primary school. Crampton. Apparently, Charlie Drake had attended the school. Aside from during the school-run, the street was relatively quiet, which was perhaps why the drug dealers chose to park there. A few streetlamps bathed part of the scene in a soft, amber glow.
His mind and body snapped to attention, like heels on a parade ground, as he took in the scene, noting any escape routes and weapons to hand. Thankfully, the Albanians didn’t notice him come out of his doorway. A small-set, rat-faced figure sat in the driver’s seat. Vasil Bisha. His spiked, black hair was full of product – and appeared as oily as a Cabinet minister. His skin was pale, waxy. His features were shaped into a perpetual sneer, as if he were just about to spit out a gobbet of phlegm. His teeth, housed within swollen gums, were sharp and yellow, like shards of antique ivory. Beady eyes sat beneath a beetle brow. There was something inherently feral and nasty about the man, Marshal considered. He probably carried a knife and wouldn’t think twice about stabbing someone in the back. Bisha had worked as a hospital porter, back in Tirana, before his cousin encouraged him to come to Britain, over a decade ago.
“It is a land of milk and money, Vasil,” his kinsman argued. “You can earn more in a month in Britain than you can in a year in the old country… Luka Rugova, our boss, will treat you well… Besa, our code, is everything. Always obey any order. Your loyalty will be to Luka… Do not think about crossing Baruti, Luka’s lieutenant, either. He’s as cunning as a fox and as vicious as a mongoose… We’re a family…”
Vasil Bisha worked his way up in the organisation. He had been specially recruited by Rugova to come down to London, from Glasgow, and build up their businesses. He sold product. He drove prostitutes to outcall clients. He collected money each week from their brothels, or money laundering units. Business was good. Life was good. Bisha was fond of sampling his own product a little too much, however, as evidenced by his constant sniffing and erratic moods. He also enjoyed sampling the new girls he helped traffic over. He liked them young, before they turned into sour-faced hags. He would sometimes give a tip to the ones he liked, but should he be unhappy with their performance or lack of respect for him, Bisha would get rough with them. On one occasion, when he broke a girl’s cheekbone, Rugova had to warn his employee about his conduct. The girl couldn’t work for several weeks – and Bisha was ordered to pay compensation to the brothel, out of his wages, for the organisation’s loss of earnings. Business was business.
The figure in the passenger seat, Bashkim, resembled a Slavic Frankenstein’s monster, Marshal thought. Brutal and gormless. Bullet-headed. Lantern-jawed. The former boxer had cauliflower ears and a flat, broken nose, resembling a statue whose beak had been clumsily re-attached. His drug of choice seemed to be body-building steroids, rather than cocaine. Bashkim’s neck was decorated with a large tattoo of the double-headed eagle, featured on the Albanian flag. He wore tracksuit bottoms and a body-hugging t-shirt, revealing a tattoo of a knife, dripping with blood, on one forearm, and an image of a black bear on the other. Spiderweb tattoos covered his knuckles and the webbing on his hands, which contained several gold rings. Bashkim wore a diamond earring on his left ear and a thick, gold chain around his neck. Marshal sensed that the thug possessed more money than sense, though he couldn’t be blamed for being alone in the world in that regard. You had to spend a significant amount of money to buy something so ugly.
Bashkim had joined Rugova’s gang after finishing his national service. From the start, he proved an enthusiastic, effective enforcer. He embraced the Besa code. He nicknamed himself “The Butcher,” because he wasn’t afraid of getting blood on his hands and because the foot-soldier came from a family of fishmongers and butchers, back in his hometown of Klos. Bashkim had recently become Rugova’s chief torturer, although Baruti invariably oversaw any interrogation. “The Butcher” took pride in his work – and enjoyed watching his victims writhe in agony and scream, almost operatically. His favourite method of torture was just to take out his cigarette lighter and use the flame to burn noses, eyes and genitals. Bashkim would often extend the session of torture, even
when Baruti had extracted the relevant information from his victim. The Albanian enjoyed mixing business with pleasure.
Bashkim had also recently become obsessed with posting semi-naked pictures and videos of himself on Facebook. He would oil up his skin and flex his muscles, sometimes holding a knife and licking the blade. He even generated quite a few followers, in the form of Albanian criminals/prisoners, housewives from Peterborough and gay men. He constantly checked whether his pictures were being “liked” and commented on. There were times when Bashkim wanted to boast of his crimes on his page, but he knew Baruti would frown on him doing so. Things must be kept within the family.
Bisha turned down the rap music that was playing as the potential customer came up to his car door. Thank God for small mercies, Marshal thought. The wiry Albanian was smoking a cigarette, with the window down.
“What are you looking for?” the dealer asked, before sniffing and stroking his thumb across his nose. His accent was guttural, but his English was good. The phrase he used was not altogether incriminating. The dealer had sent a text message to a raft of regular customers to say where he was, but he was all too willing to sell to new people as well.
“I’m looking for you to drive away and ply your wares elsewhere,” Marshal replied, politely yet firmly. “Nothing good can come of you staying here.” Although the Hampshire-born soldier had attended Harrow, Magdalen and Sandhurst, his voice had acquired a slight London drawl over the years. The onetime captain in 3 Para had been as comfortable drinking in the barracks as in the officer’s mess.
Bisha’s weaselly features creased in confusion and contempt. For a moment, he thought that the stranger might be drunk, or an undercover policeman. But it seemed he was just a nosey neighbour. The English thought they were so superior – although, having lived in Glasgow for a few years, he considered that the English had reason to believe themselves superior to the Scottish.