by Gus Ross
Chapter 21: Mac Howison.
Mac Howison’s night had not been all that much better than the man who was now sitting across the desk from him, although he suspected that perhaps things were about to take a turn for the better. No matter how hard he had tried there was just no way of knowing whether the old man was lying through his teeth or not. But now he was here, sitting in his office with a rather sombre look on his face and to Mac Howison that could only mean one thing.
“So George, I take it that now you have had a chance to think things over, that ya’ have come round to my way of seein’ things?”
Mac was leaning back on his chair towards the London skyline behind him as he spoke. It was framed in floor to ceiling glass and looked distinctly unreal, like some kind of painting, save for the seemingly perpetual turning of the London Eye.
“Actually Mac, I came here to talk to you about Charles Hanson.”
“Charlie boy. Well how the hell is he? Not seen that son of a gun for quite some time.”
“I’m afraid you won’t be seeing him any time soon; they found him dead last night. Seems his head got in the way of a stray bullet.” Thomson fixed him with an unwavering stare, as if he was no longer looking at the face of the man before him but was somehow trying to see right down into his soul, trying to see just what kind of demons were lurking beneath the surface.
But Howison did not so much as flinch.
“That so. I’m real sorry to hear that. Hell of a business you boys are in. I kinda’ liked that guy. Shame.”
For a brief moment Thomson felt the urge to lunge forward and shove the chair and its occupant as hard as he could towards the wall of glass behind him, hoping that he could muster enough force to send both hurtling through the glass to the concrete some twenty or so floors below. But what good would that do.
“I’m sure you did Mac.”
“Sure I did what?”
“I’m sure you ‘kinda’ liked him. After all he was feeding you some rather tasty little morsels, wasn’t he Mac?”
Mac narrowed his eyes as he looked the old man up and down, as if finally seeing him as a worthy opponent.
“I’m pretty sure I have no idea what you are talking about George. But if you want to start making wild accusations I can give ya’ the name of my lawyer.”
“I think we are well past that stage Mac. You see your good friend Charles took out an insurance policy. You know Mac, the kind that pays out if you have a nasty accident, or suffer some kind life threatening trauma, or god forbid, walk into the path of some stray bullet.”
Mac was no longer swinging back on his chair; it had hit the ground with a thud and his face was now deadly serious.
“Your bluffin’ again George. I can always tell.”
“Is that so? Perhaps you might want to take a look at these.”
Thomson threw the contents of the A4 envelope across the desk and waited.
It was almost as if all the blood had suddenly drained from Mac Howison’s bulbous face; he looked like a ghost, or someone that was soon to become one. His jaw fell open as if he were about to speak, but no sound came out.
Eventually his eyes rose to meet the old man’s. There was a look of lost resignation behind them, a look George had seen before but could not place. And then Howison started to clap; slowly and methodically, almost mockingly; four then five slow, loud claps and then he stopped.
“I think this is what you might call Check Mate, is that right George old boy?”
Thomson said nothing.
“Let me just get my keys.”
George Thomson would have a hard time getting the picture out of his mind. He would see it in the shower, he would see it last thing at night and first thing in the morning, he would see it whether his eyes were open or closed and it would stay with him for a very long time. He could still see the outlines of the London Eye, Parliament and Big Ben but they were hazy now, muddied, obscured and they were bright red, as red as the blood in his veins, as red as the blood that had coursed through Mac Howison’s with such fury and intensity.
And it was blood he was looking at; splattered everywhere on the wall of glass before him.
Mac Howison sat slumped back on his chair again, with what was left of his head at almost right angles to his chest, dead.
Chapter 22: Dear old mum.
I had called her to tell her I was coming. She had asked me if Eva would be joining me this time, but I said she was heading off on business again. She quite often could not make it when I visited my mum so there was nothing unusual about her non- attendance. I was glad of that. Trying to explain any of it to my mum was way beyond my level of endurance; I would rather have sawn my leg off with a spoon. One day I would break it to her gently, or perhaps I would just tell her that she had left me. Secretly I was kind of hoping that maybe dear old mum would oblige and start to lose her marbles a bit and that then she might just forget all about my dear wife.
I was quite surprised that Thomson and his boys had no real need for me. Given the lengths they had gone to in the past few days I was beginning to think I would end up incarcerated on some island in the South Pacific that no one had ever heard of and still had its very own indigenous population of cannibals. But it seemed that I was only ever useful as some kind of bait to try and lure my wife out into the open, and given that I was still pretty clueless about everything I was finally a free man.
And I mean really free.
Of course there was the obligatory warning about matters of National Security and all that gubbins, but I paid it scant attention.
It had felt like a lifetime and for sure I was no longer quite the same man as I was at the beginning of the week. A week, the whole thing had taken just a week, I found that hard to fathom. But here I was, on my way to dear old mums on a Sunday afternoon with some nice tea and cake to look forward to, no doubt.
I had wanted to tell her about the package I had sent her, in case she did something silly with it, but realised it would not be arriving until Monday morning at the earliest and given the state of our postal service, it might well be a few days more than that. I was happy to stay at mums until it got there and, after all, I was now technically of no fixed abode. Mum would be pleased if I stayed for a bit.
As it was the package did arrive on Monday morning and thankfully I got to the mail first. I hid it in my bedroom, under the mattress, and did not open it until that evening when dear old mum had popped off to bed and the land of nod.
I was not sure what to expect when I finally opened it but at first I was disappointed. Inside the second envelope was a stale yellow brown looking Jiffy bag and it been taped over to presumably protect the contents from falling out. I pretty much ripped the hell out of it trying to get it open. Never did have any patience.
There was a whole raft of important looking stuff inside: papers, documents marked ‘secret and confidential’, a memory stick and photos of various people, some I recognised and most I did not, all with dates and times and names stamped on them. There was also one small white envelope that seemed relatively thick. I thumbed through the lot of it and my immediate reaction was similar to a three year old being given all the pieces of a giant jigsaw without even a picture of the end product to go on.
I decided to open the white envelope. It contained six sheets of foolscap; each had been handwritten on both sides. The writing was clearly that of my wife and the header on each sheet was that of the Tudor Grange Hotel.
I read it through and immediately wished I hadn’t. I read it again but that made me even angrier. I would go back to it, and in particular the section about Alex Boardman, many times that night and many nights after that.
I suppose she had no choice but to tell me. She had laid out the whole thing, an idiot’s guide to what she had been up to, an idiot’s guide on how to complete the jigsaw puzzle contained in the Jiffy bag, and I suppose Boardman was an integral part of it all.
She had told me all about him; she had explained how
it was simply part of what she had to do and that there was no enjoyment in any of it. But I could not believe that... didn’t want to. There was a picture of the handsome bastard in amongst the others and I just knew.... I just knew.
I wanted to kill him, but apparently he had gone and done that all by himself.
I still wanted to kill him.
I suppose the crux of it all was the bit that I missed first time around and probably the second time as well. I was too furious and too hurt and just too fucked up to get it. I am not sure when the penny dropped and the light finally came on, but when it did, I got it. I got it and then some. And the irony of it all was that no one else had, or at least she had been pretty certain no one else had.
The whole thing with Boardman had been a set up, she had felt it from the start; it had been just too easy for her to waltz into his life, stick her hand in the cookie jar and leave without so much as a parking ticket. She was being set up for something and by someone, and then the strangest thing happened. Boardman fell for her. It was not meant to happen, and it was not her intention, but it had happened all the same. And the harder he fell the more he had told her.
Eventually he had told her everything, even the part about the dummy set up he had in place down in the basement, just in case the bad guys came snooping and trying to steal the family silver. And then, finally, the coup de grace; he opened up like a clam that couldn’t bear to keep the pearl in its mouth a moment longer, like the jailbird who felt compelled by God to sing like a canary in an act of delusional repent, like the little boy who just had to tell his brothers and sisters that Santa was not real, and there he was, telling her all about what he discovered and where the real information could be found and spilling out all his secrets, like the fool that is a man in love.
He had fallen so hard that he would have done anything to impress her.
And so it had been that she had left Boardman’s townhouse that night with a hell of a lot more than she was supposed to have, and the crazy thing was that nobody suspected she had anything more than a file full of spurious data.
But what I had thought was really clever was that even though my wife had gone to what was supposed to have been the handover with Hendrick, she had not taken all the information at once. She had simply created a small extract of the data, just in case. She had known there was too much at risk, and like any agent worth her salt, she had held some information back for insurance purposes.
I looked at the little memory stick; the one with all of the real data on it. It looked pretty insignificant, but I knew what was in it and what I would eventually have to do with it.
The last paragraph of the last page was the one that really got me choked up. I had heard the reports from Bournemouth. I assumed she must either be dead or perhaps worse still have been captured, but I was having real difficulty in trying to process any of it. It was somehow surreal. By all accounts I should have been grieving by now, but I was nowhere near it. I was not sure if it was because I still could not believe any of this had really happened, or that I no longer cared, or maybe that I just could not face up to the consequences, but I didn’t want to go there.
But the final paragraph meant that I had to.
It was simple really, but suddenly I was filled with a whole bunch of conflicting feelings that I wanted to suppress. No, hell, I wanted to stuff them away in a box with a big giant chain and padlock the damned thing, and then throw away the key.
It was not fair.
I was not ready for any of it.
“...My Darling Dave. If you have read all of this then it will be because we did not manage to meet as planned. I know this has been hard reading and I am sorry, but I hope that at least you are ok and perhaps one day you can find a way to forgive me, or at least understand. If I have made it, then I will need to lie low for a bit, probably forever. But please try not to worry about me. If things work out, there is one place where I will try and make it to; the one place we have always talked about going. I know you know where it is, but you understand why I can’t write it down. If I make it, and if you can find it in your heart to forgive me, then I hope that maybe one day you can make it there to.
I do love you. I always have....Eva.”
Chapter 23: Sun, Sea and stories about Spies.
I boarded the British Airways flight 0283 from Heathrow to LAX; I had even managed a complimentary upgrade to business class, my first time ever, something to do with turning up very late and almost missing the flight entirely. I was greeted by a most welcoming, and very easy on the eye, stewardess, who assured me she would take care of my every need. I stifled the ridiculous thought that entered my childlike mind at the sound of her words, before slumping luxuriously into my sumptuous seat.
This was how to travel; before I could even figure out what the hell all the buttons surrounding me were for, I was offered a glass of champagne, not that I really like the stuff, but when someone offers you something for free (albeit most of the accompanying business class passengers had paid through the nose for such freebies), you find yourself biting their hand off.
And it didn’t taste half bad.
I looked out of the window at the line of planes taxiing to take off and for the first time in a long time I felt myself relax, really relax. There would be no one following me, no agents to look out for, no spooks, no gooks, no strange Elton impersonators or blokes with the eyes of a shark. Somehow I had come through the whole thing, and I was good to go.
I spent almost all of the flight either watching films or eating and quite often doing both. I found one particularly entertaining horror film about a strange house which appeared to alter the behaviour of those unlucky enough to live there and generally resulted in some inexplicable and rather gory deaths (not my usual genre, but I had no stomach for any form of thriller / espionage flick).
But I was sure of one thing; I never want to go back to cattle class again and I really do want to be rich one day; I was made to travel this way. I found myself considering the merits of a free upgrade from an airline perspective; surely giving Joe Public the taste of something he can’t really afford is more liable to dissuade him from ever flying again than from signing up to that particular airline’s loyalty programme. But then again, if you had to fly, you were sure to remember the good guys that gave you the free upgrade, so I suppose there was method in their madness.
It was the first time I had actually flown on my own; it had always been holidays with friends or with my wife, or the very occasional business trip with the dullards from the office (those were the ones I really hated, all polite chit chat at stupid o’clock in the morning with a bunch of Muppets in suits, and even if you managed to avoid sitting with your colleagues there was always some silly mare in the row behind with verbal diarrhoea to drive you crazy). In a strange sort of way it was kind of exciting, a bit like an adventure and it would all be worth it in the end.
LAX really is the drabbest airport I have ever been to; I’m not sure what I was expecting, maybe some glitz and glamour, a touch of Hollywood, whatever, but this place was like a giant bus terminal, all grey and glass and full of rows of black chairs that seemed to be randomly positioned around the terminal in little huddles.
Maybe I was only seeing the bit that brought me to my connecting flight. Maybe I was already a bit jet lagged (more like film and food lagged), but I was happy when the flight to Hawaii finally took off and I left LAX behind me.
The Big Island would take six hours in lowly cattle class to reach, but this was the last leg of my journey, so I didn’t really mind. Soon I would be sitting in the sun, eating the finest of seafood, wearing the most ridiculous Hawaiian shirt I had ever seen (which is saying something, but which I put a lot of time into choosing; if you are going to look ridiculous you might as well go the whole hog), and it would all be over.
My mind started to drift off as I felt the wheels finally leave the runway beneath me and I found myself thinking about my wife, about Thomson and Sternie
, about Howison and Hanson, about Watt and Buckfield; it was beginning to sound like the line up for Come Dancing, or perhaps a collection of small time law firms, and I felt myself smiling at the thought.
And then I thought about him; I didn’t really want to, but it is amazing how difficult it is to block out the most painful memories; almost as if your mind is programmed to keep rerunning the shit over and over until eventually, after endless torment, you start to numb a little. Not a lot mind you, it’s a bloody slow process. But in the end most of us get there.
I hated that handsome tosser. Everything else I could deal with, or at least I would have a damned good try at dealing with, but that had been personal. He picked a pretty tough way to bow out mind you, but I still hated every inch of his flattened and squished handsome face.
I finally drifted off completely, and before long I was in a place that looked a lot like London, but not quite; the buildings actually looked more like New York and it was warm, yet there I was with a brolly in one hand and a briefcase in the other. I was walking and then I was running, and there was someone chasing me. I had no idea who it was, but then a line of faces whizzed past, like a police line up, as if inviting me to choose the correct baddie; faces that were all too familiar. In the background I could hear the sound of some old Elton John song drifting across the skyline, except the words didn’t sound right either, something about crocodile socks, at least it sounded like crocodile socks, and then I could see them, stupid orange and yellow stripped socks with daft smiles on their faces, dancing around the place in perfect beat.
I never did like his music.
And then I was in a cab and there were lots of faces in there with me, it was like a giant limo cab and people just kept coming forward out of it like it was the Tardis or something; the same faces that had been in the police line up a moment ago. And they were all smiling at me and saying hello, like they were my long lost best friends. And there he was, Alex bloody Boardman, all handsome and suave and fucking perfect and not in the least bit squashed.