Old Friends and New Enemies

by Owen Mullen

  She sighed. ‘And that awful muddle Perry got into hasn’t helped. You should’ve heard your father. I thought he would have a coronary.’

  Perry was Peregrine Sommerville: lifetime conservative activist, commentator and MP for the ninth safest Tory seat in England. The muddle, a synonym in my mother’s circle for anything from parking illegally to selling state secrets, made the front page of every newspaper, the most telling detail coming from the broadsheet that carried out the investigation. Perry lied under oath about his associations with a minor member of the Saudi royal family and a Jordanian businessman called Abelsalam al-Majari. Allegations that he accepted money were denied and denied again until footage shot from a hidden camera was shown to a silent courthouse. He was convicted of perjury. A zealous prosecutor could have pressed more serious charges but for reasons that never became clear, the will to pursue old Perry was lacking.

  Friends in high places. My father no doubt was one of them.

  Perry got fifteen months in Longmarsh Cat. D prison and served eight. During his spell at Her Majesty’s pleasure he underwent a moral sea change. On the day of his release, outside the prison gates, he told how he had opened his heart to his Saviour, and repented for his much publicised sins. The Party distanced itself still further from Peregrine Sommerville, at the double.

  ‘He found Jesus. Is that real?’

  My mother said, ‘I’ve no idea. Perry and your father have been friends for forty-five years. He was best man at our wedding. Archie was devastated. Couldn’t believe Perry would be so stupid. As if the trial hadn’t been bad enough, day after day of sordid details, the press fell on it like the hunt pack.’ Her gaze wandered towards the window. ‘It’s Arabella I feel for most, and the girls. Politically, Perry’s ruined of course. Not financially, that was the thing, he didn’t need the money. His wife’s family have plenty.’

  ‘He just wanted it.’

  Her eyebrow arched. ‘Perry’s done the Party a lot of damage, Charles. Your father says it’s too soon to assess how serious. Lucky the last election produced a comfortable majority, otherwise it would be a very bumpy trip.’

  ‘Did he visit him in Longmarsh?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Shouldn’t he have gone to see him?’

  ‘Absolutely not. What a ludicrous suggestion.’

  A forty-five year friendship down the toilet, not because your best man turns out to be corrupt, not even because he got caught, but because, when he did, he couldn’t do the ‘right thing’ and put a sock in it.’

  ‘What does the doctor say about you?’

  ‘Not much. I’m sixty-five after all. Rest, Aspirin, exercise. Avoid stress.’ She laughed. ‘Married to your father? More to the point, how are you? You look a bit peaky. Still snooping on unsuspecting Glaswegians?’

  ‘I don’t snoop.’

  ‘You always were a secretive little boy. I should have spotted it. Nipped it in the bud.’

  ‘Mother.’ I smiled. ‘Stop trying to wind me up. You know what I do.’

  She unwrapped an old chestnut. ‘When am I going to be a grandmother, Charles?’

  ‘It isn’t in the plan.’

  ‘And what happened to the girl you brought to meet us, the one with long red hair? You seemed keen on each other.’

  She meant Kate.

  ‘It didn’t work out.’

  ‘Mmmm, I liked her, she was nice.’

  ‘Yes she was.’

  ‘So you haven’t got a girlfriend at the moment?’

  I didn’t answer, she would meet Fiona soon enough.

  ‘Pru Carrington’s youngest daughter’s visiting them. We could drive over. You remember Caroline, don’t you?’

  I remembered Caroline all right.

  ‘No, just a flying visit to check on you. Back to Scotland tonight.’

  Not the truth. I was booked on a flight to Alicante at seven a.m. I missed Fiona.

  My mother’s disappointment touched me. ‘Oh Charles, surely you can stay a bit longer?’ She picked up the telephone and dialled. ‘Archie, Charles is here. No, he’s going tonight; he’ll drop in at Smith Square on his way through town. You’ll be around? Seven, that’s fine. Bye.’

  She put the receiver in its cradle. ‘There. All arranged. Your father’s expecting you. Now you can take me to lunch. Absolutely certain about Caroline Carrington? I’m sure she would love to see you.’

  I couldn’t tell her why, but Caroline Carrington wouldn’t be pleased to see me.

  Smith Square was Conservative and Unionist Party headquarters. Security let me through and gave me a Visitor badge. People hurried past carrying memos and letters and reports. It was difficult to avoid the feeling that power lived here. The office was on the first floor. His secretary gave me an approving nod. George Archibald Cameron stared out of the window with his back to me. When he turned I caught the change in him; he was smaller, his eyes were heavy, the face florid; blood pressure, fine wine or a bit of both, but the old directness was there. ‘So, Charlie, how much longer do you intend to keep playing silly buggers in Glasgow?’

  ‘And good evening to you too, father.’

  He put his hands on my shoulders and eyed me up and down. ‘You look well enough, say that for you.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Could do with you down here. Place is full of incompetents determined to lose us the next election. Always room for a good man.’

  We both knew that ship had sailed.

  ‘Not staying I hear. Pity. Your mother would like to see more of you.’

  ‘Why don’t you both come to Glasgow for a day or two? It’s not how you remember it.’

  ‘Want us to watch our only son spying on the unsuspecting locals?’

  He didn’t like Scotland; no votes up there for his lot.

  ‘I’m inviting you to meet my friends, see what I’m doing. Who knows, you may even approve.’

  ‘I very much doubt it.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure.’

  ‘Please don’t take this wrong, Charlie, but under achieving doesn’t impress me, never has.’

  ‘What’re you talking about, under achieving?’

  He walked to his desk, sat down and started rearranging papers. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘it’s your life, just please don’t ask me to understand. You’ve had the best education money can buy and what are you doing with it? I had hoped you’d get this investigator nonsense out of your system. Might be ready to make a real contribution.’

  Every visit to my parents produced the same conversations. With my mother it was grandchildren; my father’s pet poodle was me squandering my advantages in the godforsaken north.

  ‘Mum filled me in on Perry.’

  He sighed and shook his head. ‘Thirty years in politics down the drain. Probably his marriage too. And for what?’

  ‘How much damage has he done?’

  ‘Too soon to tell. I blame myself.’

  ‘Why? Perry Sommerville sold political influence in exchange for money and lied under oath about it. What could you have done?’

  ‘I should have seen it coming.’

  ‘How? How could you?’

  He leaned his elbows on the desk. ‘Perry and I met at university. He was the one who got me involved in politics. Until then I hadn’t been interested. He had a knack of making you believe whatever he was peddling. Tremendously persuasive.’

  Particularly useful in this game.

  ‘One time at the conference in Blackpool he stood in at short notice for somebody who had taken ill. And by short I mean an hour. Perry spoke without notes for twenty five minutes. Off the top of his head. Got a standing ovation.’

  Standing ovations were thirteen to the dozen at Tory get togethers. Preaching to the choir. I wasn’t surprised. ‘What’s your point? Why blame yourself?’

  He threw a sharp look at me. ‘My point is it was bullshit, every word of it. I was there, yet at the end I was on my feet with everybody else.’

  ‘So he was a con man.’


  ‘From the beginning. The first time he stood for parliament he lost – maybe people saw what I didn’t. He got in at the next attempt thanks to me. I was his election agent. I organised his campaign, for Christ’s sake. Of course I’m responsible for the mess he’s got us into. This latest thing isn’t a lapse – he’s always sailed close to the wind, then tried to charm his way out of it. Because he was a pal I ignored his recklessness. Defended him. Perry was Perry. And he was greedy. For the spotlight, for applause, money. Whatever.’

  He might have been describing Ian Selkirk.

  ‘I should have kept an eye on him. Dumped him for the good of the Party when he got caught instead of rallying support behind the scenes.’

  ‘Being a bit hard on him, aren’t you? He was the victim of a yellow journalism sting. Entrapment.’

  ‘Not a bit. Sommerville’s a fraud who may have stuffed our chances of a second term in office. A consummate actor who took everybody in; in my case for over forty years.’

  ‘Okay, he’s everything you say, but he was your friend. Surely that counts for something?’

  ‘Was he?’

  He ran a hand through his hair, still thick and dark; the pain in his eyes said I had misjudged the depth of Perry’s betrayal. ‘I thought I knew him, Charlie, but the truth is I didn’t know him at all.’

  That admission, out of the blue, came at an opportune moment for me. The unexpected frankness of his reply took me by surprise and, if nothing else, showed I didn’t know as much about this man as I imagined.

  The times when we shared an opinion, far less an emotion, were rare though for once I understood exactly how my father felt and why.

  Nineteen

  On a country road in the small hours, two cars cut their engines and eased onto the grass verge under a bank of trees. The headlights died and five men got out: the Rafferty brothers, and three soldiers. A lot of muscle for a simple operation, but then failure was out of the question – they were running out of time.

  Sean Rafferty had lived his whole life in the city; at four a.m. on a starless night this place was very different from the east end streets. He stood, allowing his eyes to adjust to darkness like he’d never known, threatening and strange, even to a hard man from Glasgow. After a minute he was able to identify the single track cutting through fields to the farmhouse and the cottage beyond; vague shapes against the sky. Some people loved this shit; the fresh air, the space, the quiet. Not him. It set him on edge. The sooner they did what they were there to do and headed back to civilisation the better.

  He had come here during the day to satisfy himself the information they’d received was correct. It was, he’d seen the cropped hair behind the wheel of the hire car and followed her to a supermarket in Kilmarnock. She wandered up and down the aisles, filling her trolley; reading labels and comparing prices; occasionally having second thoughts about a can or a packet and replacing it. The t-shirt she was wearing read: YESTERDAY YOU SAID TOMORROW on the front. At the checkout she smiled at the pretty girl on the till and paid in cash, a couple of hundred pounds, a lot of food for one person. Digging in ‘til her boyfriend got a result? All told the shopping trip took ninety minutes and couldn’t have been more ordinary, nothing about her suggested this was a woman with a five million pound secret.

  In the car park, Rafferty watched her load groceries into the boot, bending and stretching, skirt drawn tight against her arse, and remembered her legs the first time he’d seen her. He’d wanted the bitch then, and he wanted her now; for a second he even considered taking a chance and lifting her in broad daylight. Impetuous and unwise. Something Kevin might try. Sean was more cautious than his brother; too many things could go wrong. And it wasn’t the plan.

  An owl hooted and flew from a branch above his head. He froze, startled. Why in the name of Christ was he here? Why were any of them here? The sense of foreboding that had dogged him from the moment Jimmy agreed to Kevin’s crazy idea overwhelmed him. He saw the future and bared his teeth in a joyless grin. This was a mistake, a mistake that would bring them down. They were about to unleash something they couldn’t control.

  Rafferty shivered and started towards the farm.

  Who was he kidding? It was already out of control.

  * * *

  -------

  * * *

  They walked in silence along the track ridged and rutted by farm traffic. Vincent Donnelly, a thug who worked for the family between spells in Barlinnie, stumbled and cursed out loud. Kevin Rafferty grabbed him by the lapels and threw him to the ground, Donnelly felt the blade at his throat and a warm sensation he recognised as blood. Kevin hissed. ‘Another noise and you’ll wish you were back in the Big House.’

  If the others needed a reminder of what was at stake they had it.

  The previous afternoon, Sean had studied the farm through binoculars and reported to Jimmy and his brother. He’d told them the downside and his opinion that it was too risky. It made no difference, their minds were made up, they were for going ahead. Sean made a final attempt to dissuade the old man.

  ‘This is a move we don’t make until we have to.’

  Kevin exploded. ‘And when will that be? Grow some balls, for fuck’s sake! We need this bitch. Cameron’s an amateur, out of his depth. We know more than he does.’

  Sean ignored him. ‘Do this, Jimmy, and there’s no going back.’

  Jimmy shook his head; his middle son was weak.

  ‘A world of shit about to come down on us and you want to wait. I think Kevin’s right. You need to grow a pair.’

  ‘It won’t be clean; loose ends attract attention.’

  ‘Clean isn’t on. Never was. After a while the people at the farm will notice she’s gone, then we’ll have police, newspapers...’

  ‘And Emil Rocha.’

  Jimmy dismissed Sean’s objections. ‘There’s a time for caution. This isn’t it. Your brother can be an arse, but he isn’t afraid to act. You can learn from him.’

  Sean Rafferty had heard the same criticism all his life; on the drive from the city it stayed with him. It was always the same with Jimmy and Kevin and wouldn’t get any better. Their greed had put them in danger. Now the stupid bastards were hell bent on making a bad situation worse and couldn’t see it.

  The five figures stopped forty yards from the farmhouse. Twelve hours earlier it had been deserted now a Land Rover was parked on the flagstone courtyard with a new BMW beside it. Somebody was home. They crept closer, crouched and tense. The house showed no sign of life; nothing stirred. That wouldn’t last. From under his jacket Kevin drew a gun with a suppressor already screwed in place. Jimmy had made it clear this was his show. Unease gnawed Sean’s gut. Like all Kevin’s plans it was doomed – any second it was going to go tits up.

  They came out of the night like phantoms, racing to the rattle of their chains, growling and barking: the downside Sean Rafferty had warned against. Every farm had a dog, this farm had two. German Shepherds. Shooting them was easy. Doing it before they alerted the people in the house was impossible.

  The lead dog made for Kevin Rafferty. He saw it coming at him and fired a wild shot that missed. The animal swerved and leapt on Vinney Donnelly standing behind him. Donnelly crashed to the ground, fighting to keep the open jaws from his throat.

  He screamed. ‘Shoot it! Shoot it!’

  Kevin spun, saw his man rolling on the flagstones with the dog straddling him and fired again. Donnelly stopped struggling; he’d served his last stretch in the Bar-L. The second Alsatian crashed into Kevin and buried its teeth in his arm. He cried out in pain and lost his grip on the gun. The other dog went for the nearest soldier. Sean was first to react. He dived for the gun and shared four shots between them.

  After the bedlam the sudden silence was like a blow. Kevin staggered to his feet holding his arm, blood dripping from his fingers. He stared at Donnelly’s lifeless body and swore under his breath.

  The disaster Sean predicted had happened. And it wasn’t over.


  A light went on in an upstairs window, a face appeared and disappeared. Moments later the front door opened and a man in his fifties barged out holding a shotgun. Behind him a female called ‘John! What is it? Be careful!’

  The farmer saw the German Shepherds dead on the flagstones and levelled the weapon at the intruders. ‘Who the fuck are you? What do...’

  His question went unfinished, Kevin grabbed the gun from his brother and this time hit what he was aiming for. The farmer collapsed and fell backwards into the hall. Kevin ran into the house and up the stairs, when he returned Sean caught the wild look in his eyes.

  Kevin said, ‘Those loose ends you were worried about, forget them.’

  Two hundred yards down the track, the cottage was as silent as the farm had been before the dogs came round the corner and ended any hope of taking the woman quietly. In daylight it had the look of a property on its way to dereliction; the original whitewash had yellowed, plaster cracks scarred the outside walls and rust stains from broken guttering ran brown to the ground. Internally it hadn’t been updated in fifty years. It would be damp and cramped and hard to heat in winter. Fiona Ramsay hadn’t rented it for its quaint appearance or sparkling amenities – it had more important qualities; the track petered out and became field, so there was no traffic apart from the farmer, his wife and a few labourers coming and going. No neighbours. Perfect.

  Kevin signalled his men to cover the front. He moved slowly round the side testing every step with Sean behind him, half expecting the place to be empty. The woman must have heard the commotion and escaped across open land into the night. Searching would be a waste of time. Kevin dreaded having to tell Jimmy they’d lost her.

  At the back door his luck changed: the old lock gave without a fight; one tap of a screwdriver covered with a cloth to deaden the sound was enough. No sweat. He stepped into the kitchen, ran his hand along the inside wall for the switch, found it and turned it on. A naked bulb threw bleak light over a sink full of unwashed dishes and a rubbish bin overflowing empty wine bottles onto the floor. The cloying smell of reheated Chinese take-away caught in his throat. He tutted disapproval like a health inspector who had discovered a restaurant’s dirty secret. Killing the farmer and his wife energised Kevin Rafferty. Now, standing in the kitchen, a feeling of power surged through him.