by Paul Starkey
Putting on her leather jacket she slipped the handbag over one shoulder and surveyed the room as if she were looking for something. She wasn’t, she was just using the time to reconsider. There was one downside to her plan. Under normal circumstances she would have taken a couple of random tube journeys, hopping between trains and even changing lines before she ventured up top to find a payphone. She couldn’t do that tonight, so she’d have to use a phone close to home. This made her communications vulnerable. It was doubtful anyone could hack in without prior knowledge she was going to make the calls, but if for any reason she was under surveillance, then they could backtrack her calls from the phone kiosk; get the number of the other end and from it an address.
She laughed. Paranoia was the curse of the spy, it made you see rain clouds on sunny days, and she’d noted that for the past few months she’d been more skittish than usual. At first she’d put it off as just one of those things, the nature of the job, but she knew cracks were beginning to appear in those boxes in her mind. She’d heard about this, they all had, about agents who basically couldn’t do it anymore, couldn’t keep the individual parts of their lives separate. Those who realised it in time got out with their sanity intact. Those who didn’t ended up having a breakdown, or worse, getting themselves or others killed.
I’m not cracking up, she told herself. She figured she probably just needed a holiday. Three weeks with her mother and stepfather hardly counted. The one good thing about Bottlewood was that it was finite. It would be stressful, but last 24 hours at most, then the man at the centre of the op wouldn’t be her concern anymore, and maybe then she would ask for a few weeks off. Lose herself by the Italian lakes with a good book or three.
As she left her flat she decided the worst thing about Bottlewood going live tomorrow was that now she wouldn’t be able to get quite as drunk tonight as she’d planned.
Chapter three
John Tyrell picked up a plate from the draining board and methodically dried it with a gaudy tea towel that proclaimed it was a souvenir from Whitby. The dishes had been washed earlier that morning, and time, plus the autumnal sun streaming through the kitchen window, meant they were practically dry. Still he rubbed the plate for several seconds more.
The house was backwards in its layout, so the kitchen was at the front of the house, and so as he dried the already dry plate he could look out of the window, past his empty driveway and over to where a dark grey saloon was parked twenty yards down the road. There were plenty of cars out there, enough housewives and stay at home dads lived on the street to ensure the road was rarely clear, but the saloon wasn’t familiar.
At least he didn’t think it was. Turning away from the window he turned to his left and was faced with two wall mounted cupboards. Slinging the tea towel over one shoulder he held the plate in his left hand whilst his right gingerly rose…and then paused in mid-air, hovering between the doors like some idiot on a quiz show debating between identical boxes. Eventually he grunted and opened the left hand cupboard.
The bottom shelf was filled with mugs, the top shelf with glass tumblers. For a moment he contemplated slamming it shut, but somehow he held his anger in check. He gently closed it and opened the right hand door. Here plates and bowls of varying scale filled both shelves. He added the newly dry plate to the pile and closed the door. Then he crouched to examine the bland beige flooring. Hand rubbing at the floor as if what he was searching for was invisible. Eventually he spotted it, a scrap of white that had fluttered down and tried to hide between two lower cupboards. He reached in and picked up the sticky white label, stood and slapped it back against the right hand door. The sticker had a single word scrawled on it in purple felt tip. Plates
Tyrell walked back over to the window. There were other plates and a single mug still in the drainer, but he ignored them and focused instead on the saloon. It was definitely not a familiar car. In the other room he had a notebook, and two pages were dedicated to the make, model, colour, and reg number of every car that regularly parked on his street.
Paranoia goaded him to go and check the notebook, but pride overrode it, he knew he hadn’t seen this particular car before. He was sure of it. Still the woodpecker of doubt pecked away at his certainty, and he knew eventually he’d have to go and get the book. He would tell himself it was to add the saloon to the list, but he’d know this wasn’t the only reason.
Luckily he didn’t have to, because at that moment the driver of the car got out. Closing the door after him, he buttoned his suit jacket and began walking towards Tyrell’s front door. It had been a long time since he’d last seen him, still Tyrell recognised him instantly.
He looked good for a man approaching his mid-sixties, and was still as whippet thin as he’d always been. Though it had been decades since he’d last sat in the cockpit of a supersonic jet, he still retained the easy swagger of a fighter pilot.
Tyrell didn’t hurry, but he still made it to the front door a hairsbreadth before his visitor, opening the door whilst the older man was still reaching for the doorbell.
He didn’t look surprised to be beaten to the punch, if anything he looked pleased.
“Hello John.” He smiled warmly as he said it. His voice hadn’t changed a bit, still deep and commanding. Sure of itself. It was the kind of voice you expected to hear in old war movies saying “bombs away” and “tally ho”.
The older man had his right hand extended. Tyrell felt slightly foolish. His visitor wore a tailored grey suit, beneath it a blindingly white shirt and a navy blue tie knotted in a Windsor. He didn’t need to look down to know his shoes would be highly polished. In contrast Tyrell wore faded jeans and a grey sweatshirt he’d been wearing since yesterday. He also wore carpet slippers and, perhaps worst of all, he had a tea towel slung over one shoulder.
He reached out and took the proffered hand, marvelling at how strong the other man’s grip still was. He knew how limp his own must have felt in return, even without the flicker of sadness in his old boss’ eyes. “Sir George,” he said simply.
“It’s just George, John, and you damn well know it. I hate titles.”
“George,” said Tyrell with a smile. Genuinely pleased to see this ghost from the past, this man he hadn’t seen for years.
“Well are you going to invite me in, man? Or shall we talk out here on the doorstep?” He glanced around him before returning his gaze to Tyrell. “Looks a fairly safe neighbourhood, but you never know, eh?” he winked.
“I’m sorry, yes, of course you can come in,” mumbled Tyrell, stepping back to let Sir George Mellanby over the threshold. “The sitting room’s this way,” he added. Turning his back on people wasn’t something John Tyrell found easy anymore, but he didn’t hesitate when it came to Mellanby.
“Sorry the place is a mess,” he said, as he led Mellanby into the lounge, struggling to keep the shame out of his voice.
The room was dominated by a large brown leather sofa with a matching armchair. A variety of books, magazines and newspapers lay scattered across the sofa, leaving just enough room for one person to sit down. The two coffee tables were similarly encumbered. The chair was devoid of literature, but was instead draped with a pile of creased shirts that had been there a week, an ironing board stood nearby, silent sentry to Tyrell’s untidiness.
The walls were blank apart from a single reproduction Monet hung between a bookcase and a display cabinet. There were a lot of books on the shelves of the bookcase, but plenty of gaps as well; giving it the look of a grinning child who’d lost several teeth in anticipation of new ones pushing through. The display case was full or myriad knickknacks. Even from the other side of the room Tyrell could see dust on top of the cabinet.
Twin patio doors took up the back wall, leading out into a small, somewhat overgrown garden. Tyrell regretted that the curtains were drawn back, illuminating his failure to tend house with the full light of day.
Sir George Mellanby didn’t stand on ceremony. In two quick strides he reached the
armchair, scooped up the shirts and deposited them on the ironing board then, with a cursory glance at what else might be lurking there, he sat down. Tyrell remained just inside the doorway; he’d taken the tea towel from his shoulder now, and was wringing it in his hands like it was a rosary. “I’m sorry,” he muttered again.
“Don’t be daft,” said Mellanby. “You should see what my flat looks like before little Halina comes in on a Thursday morning.” He smiled wryly. “Of course it doesn’t look much better after she leaves but I’m a soft touch, can’t bring myself to fire her.” He paused. “Her arse is far too pert.”
Tyrell couldn’t help himself, he laughed.
“That’s better,” said Mellanby. “Now go make us some drinks, we have things to talk about.”
Tyrell stopped smiling. He’d stopped wringing the tea towel in his hands, now he was pulling it tight between two clenched fists as if it were a garrotte. “Perhaps you didn’t hear. I’ve retired,” he said.
“Of course I heard. I signed the final authorisation for your pension, but you know nobody ever truly retires in our business, John.”
Tyrell looked down at the towel. Feeling suddenly helpless as a child he stopped tugging at it and slung it back over his shoulder. He dug his hands into his pockets. “What the hell use can I be to you, George? I’m years out of the loop, you know that.”
“I do, this is true. But this situation is different.” He paused, his eyes narrowing slightly as if he were weighing up what to say next. In the end he uttered a single word. “Ibex.”
For a moment Tyrell stood dumbfounded. Then he remembered. “Ibex,” he whispered. His mouth had gone suddenly dry. “I’ll get those drinks.”
Chapter four
Mellanby remained in the chair whilst John Tyrell went to boil the kettle. While Tyrell was gone he slipped his Blackberry out and was instantly annoyed at how many emails had appeared in just the few minutes since he’d left the car. He tried to concentrate on them, but his thoughts kept coming back to the man in the other room. He was still uncertain about involving him in this. Mellanby shook the thoughts away and wrote a quick email.
He’d just hit send when Tyrell came back into the room, with a saucer in each hand, a dainty china cup balanced on each. He moved with the slow surety of an old woman. He put the drinks down on the nearest coffee table and then sat down in the free space on the sofa.
“I was sat outside for forty minutes. I have to admit to being a trifle disappointed. I thought you’d have noticed such an obvious stakeout and come out to say hello.” He smiled as he said it, a gentle jibe, nothing more.
“I noticed. I was just too tired to do much about it,” said Tyrell. “You still take two sugars, right?”
Mellanby hadn’t had sugar in his tea for five years. “Of course,” he smiled.
Tyrell nodded, a grateful look in his eyes. Mellanby picked up his cup and saucer, gently blew across the surface of the tea and regarded his old comrade.
Ostensibly he didn’t look that different. There’d been no sudden weight gain, or loss either, and his hair was as dark as ever, raven black and slicked back from his forehead, the style accentuating the sharp nose and avian tilt of his face and providing a broad canvas to be dominated by piercing blue/grey eyes.
When Mellanby studied him closer however the changes the last few months had wrought were more obvious. The hair was still dark, but it had noticeably thinned, and though the eyes were still icy blue lasers, the wattage behind them had dimmed somewhat. And where once he’d appeared always like a coiled spring, now his body seemed to sag.
“I can’t look that different?”
Mellanby chuckled. “Still a mind reader, John? You don’t look that different, a bit perhaps, the moustache takes some getting used to.” He grinned and took a sip of tea, fighting the urge to wince at the sweetness. He hoped focusing on the obviousness of the moustache would soften the blow of his staring.
Tyrell’s hand went automatically to his upper lip, and he stroked the facial hair there. “I’m guessing the difference is a lot more pronounced from my perspective. It’s been years since I last saw you.”
Mellanby smiled sadly. “I know John, but for me it’s six months; Dinner at the Yews, the night before you flew to Berlin. You were complaining of a headache you couldn’t shift, you laughed it off as stress. We spoke once more, after you arrived, just a quick chat over the phone. Next thing I heard you’ve been rushed into hospital.”
“I was in the middle of briefing two high ranking GSG-9 officers when it happened. Once minute I felt fine, the next I winced, went deathly pale and collapsed.” He smiled, a lopsided grin, a tiny glimpse of the man he’d once been Mellanby noted. “Of course I don’t remember any of that. The GSG-9 guys came to visit me in hospital, much later of course, and of course I didn’t have a clue who they were.”
“You were in and out of consciousness for almost a month.”
Tyrell shrugged. “So they said, I don’t recall any of that. The first concrete memory I have is of waking up and seeing a pretty young nurse smiling at me. She talked to me but I didn’t understand a word she was saying, it was German but I couldn’t even figure that out I was so dazed.” He chuckled. “Just as well really, if I’d been more together I’d have probably got worried.”
Mellanby echoed his chuckle. “And imagined you were in a basement in Moscow no doubt.”
“Something like that. Anyway, she left, to get the doctor I guess, and that’s when I got scared. I was confused, and being alone didn’t help. Of course now I look back on that time with envy.”
Mellanby frowned. “I don’t understand?”
“Ignorance is bliss; I just didn’t know that at the time. I was confused yes, but in many ways the world still made sense, I hadn’t realised I was in the Twilight Zone back then.
“Anyway, I never did see her again. I fell asleep whilst she was gone and the next time I woke up the nurse on duty was older, not as pretty, and she didn’t smile. Two doctors were there as well. One German the other British, courtesy of the embassy I learned later. And there was an eager young Welsh chap called Bryn Edwards with them. I found him unnerving, the way he acted, the way he looked at me. Like he knew me, like we were old friends. The assumption of intimacy was somewhat disquieting.”
“Imagine how Bryn felt, here was the man who introduced him to his wife, who was best man at his wedding, looking at him like he was a stranger.”
“He was a stranger,” said Tyrell, and Mellanby noted a hint of steel behind those words. There was still some fight in John Tyrell it seemed.
“Of course, I’m sorry John.”
Tyrell waved his apology away. “It’s ok; sometimes I forget this must be as weird for everyone else as for me.”
Mellanby sipped some more tea, surprised at how quickly he was acclimatising to the sweetness. “So, the hospital room…”
Tyrell nodded. “I asked Bryn who he was, that’s when he really looked dumbfounded. I think he thought I was joking. When he realised I wasn’t he started to look worried. That’s when the doctor, the British one, asked me who the Prime Minister was. I thought it was a stupid arse question but I answered anyway. John Major.”
The pause that followed caught Sir George by surprise. Tyrell was staring off into the distance suddenly, and Mellanby noted that his hands were wringing together. He knew he should say something, try and snap him out of it, but for perhaps one of the few occasions in his life, Sir George didn’t know what to say.
And then, as suddenly as it began, Tyrell’s quiet fugue was over. He focussed back on Mellanby, and his hands calmed. “John Major. I said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Then I noticed how worried both Doctors looked, and even the nurse looked suddenly piteous. I didn’t understand. Didn’t realise that John Major was the punch line to the joke that was about to become my life.”
The words were layered with bitterness; Mellanby couldn’t blame him for that. He noticed that John’s hands
were moving again, the fingers knitting together, then slipping apart before sliding back into place again. It was like watching a child fit two jigsaw pieces together, then un-connect them as if not sure they belonged together, then repeating the process. He saw something shift in Tyrell’s eyes and knew he’d have to address the issue that stood between them before he could hope to entice the younger man back into the fold.
“I’m sorry I didn’t visit you,” he said.
Tyrell laughed, but it came out as little more than a grunt. He wasn’t going to be appeased that easily.
Sir George finished his tea, noting with interest that Tyrell hadn’t touched his yet. He put the cup and saucer back on the coffee table, then sat back and folded his own hands together. “After Bunty died, after the cancer ate her alive, well, hospitals became something of an anathema to me, couldn’t bear the places, still can’t bear them. Too many bad memories, precious few good ones.” He was laying it on a little thickly perhaps, but given the lack of focus he’d detected in Tyrell he decided this wasn’t the time for subtlety.
The sudden look of guilt in the other man’s eyes quickly told him he’d made the right decision. “I’m sorry. Sorry I wasn’t there for you, for her.”
Mellanby smiled. “You were there for us, John, and Bunty appreciated your support, as did I. Especially…especially afterwards.”
“Of course I was only in the hospital for three months,” said Tyrell now, still not quite able to let him off the hook.
Mellanby could have chosen to be irked by this, but instead he held his hands up in surrender. “I have no excuse John, except that perhaps the thought of seeing you frightened me.”