The Vengeance Man

by John Macrae

  The doctor's face grew grave as he told me that I'd got a nasty form of jaundice as well, and he wasn't sure about my kidneys. All those Lomotil and anti-squitter pills hadn't done me any good at all. Under the influence of the pre-med I didn't care about anything, and the drips and aeroplane flights and hushed hospitals seemed to float by in a haze, interspersed with flashes of reality as they flew me back to London. Northolt, I think. Christ, I must have been important.

  I remember Tony Bell, my boss of the Special Ops Teams, coming to visit me in the London hospital. He seemed relieved to see me conscious and lucid. He'd brought Sheila, his PA, with him, and I remember her smiling embarrassed at me over her owl-like reading glasses as she scribbled away at her pad like the conscientious lady she was.

  I remembered the last time I'd really seen Sheila Sykes. She'd been taking those glasses off, which were the very last thing she still had on, as I recalled, and turning her bedroom light down; but it was as if it had all taken place between two other people. It was difficult to reconcile Sheila the secretary with my memory of Sheila. Plump, giggly memory Sheila in bed was like some film I'd once seen long, long ago. I couldn't raise even a grin for her as I struggled through my report. She avoided my eye.

  Tony heard me out and told me something about taking a rest, and not worrying about my job, which, of course made me worry about my job, but only until they left and the nurses came round with the happy pills. Then I slept and didn't give a damn. I did a lot of that for the first month.

  I remember the first time that I went down alone for a proper bath and saw myself in a full length mirror. A skinny yellow creature, all ribs and staring blue eyes ringed with black looked back. I could hardly believe the evidence of that mirror. Later the specialist told me about the dysentery and the jaundice, and their effects, and I understood better why I looked as I did. One doctor told me I'd got a hydatid cyst, whatever that was. Apparently it's picked up from Kurdish goat droppings or something. I didn't care.

  There followed months of convalescence, of resting, of physiotherapy and the gym. All the time I struggled to throw off my dreadful lassitude and build myself back to the standard required of a Special Ops Officer. And for the first time I noticed the grey hairs emerging in my temples and secretly realised that I might no longer meet the physical standards.

  It was about this time that the delegation came to see me from MOD. It consisted of a couple of clever and insincere young civil servants and, of all things, a lugubrious old major from the Royal Military Police. The whole group was minded by an anxious young staff captain from the Army Legal Branch. They were all in plain clothes and we sat around in the recreation room on our own, drinking coffee while they took notes on briefcases on their knees. I didn't think much of it to start with. They admitted to being some kind of inquiry, and the captain actually cautioned me. That should have woken me up but somehow, none of it mattered. Everyone was being very nice to me, and pushing soothing phrases like, 'Of course it's just a formality..' The RMP major did most of the questioning, with occasional interjections from the civil servants.

  It was only when they started to question me about the Landrover that I realized just what it was all about. These jokers were an official Board of Inquiry investigating me for giving away one of Her Majesty's Landrovers and a lot more besides. Of course that wasn't the real reason. Apparently the Kurdish operation I had been sent on hadn't exactly been a blinding success. News to me. I’d got their bloody Iranian comcen material, hadn’t I? But there’s been some fuss in the paper, according to them. The story had leaked out. The Whitehall Mafia had decided to play the man not the ball: I could see it plainly. I could just hear the slimy bastards trying to put the spin on it: "Well, Minister, I'm afraid that the individual that was sent cocked it up rather. That's the trouble with these SAS chaps... not a lot between the ears... Bit of a blunt instrument, really.... Why, he even gave away Government Property to unauthorized personnel... grave diplomatic repercussions… We’ve issued a formal denial … However, you can reassure Number Ten that we are taking appropriate action in his case."

  Even this didn't really alarm me too much. I didn't really think that any of it could stick. Anyway, I knew that the Regiment would look after me. The SAS looks after its own. The business dragged on for a couple of months and at one point someone actually came round to see me and told me that I should be relieved because no formal charges were being brought against me and that the whole thing was being hushed up. I didn't care: it all seemed such a load of balls.

  I was wrong.

  I had my thirty fourth birthday during those months. I was back in a London clinic, having a relapse at the time. I remember it was then that I told the doctor about the dreams. Ever since the first night in the hospital at Inçirlik I had been having nightmares. Night after night, the horror of the shambles in the Hasak comcen and the guillotine-like gush of fountaining arterial blood fountained into the air as Jamal took his revenge with on the bared throat of the wretched Mahmut Tarfiq.

  The doctor was very understanding. I don't know what the MOD had told him about me, but he obviously knew a lot more than he was letting on. It seemed that the nurses had been worried too, as I shouted and thrashed around in my sleep. They all reassured me, and a couple of days later a tame trick-cyclist appeared. As an advertisement for the British Medical profession, he was a disaster.

  He affected sandals, a dry laid-back, laconic manner that would have been a wow in a California commune and a peculiarly penetrating brand of BO. He also affected a silly little beard and a pony tail, and I instantly took a deep dislike to him and his works. He looked like a stereotype caricature of a psychiatrist, and once when I pointed this out to him he neighed his silly laugh, and said, "Well, we all have our specialist uniforms, don't we? It's all to do with recognition patterns. But I expect you soldier boys understand that better than most, eh? Eh?"

  One of the nurses told me that Hepworth (“Call me Gary – everyone does….” ) was supposed to be one of the best in the business. Well, as far as I was concerned, as any form of therapist he was both obvious and useless. I didn't need counselling by malodorous bloody civilians prying into my private life. Anyway, the dreams I had been having weren't that disabling. They were the price you pay for seeing bad things. I'll bet car accident victims could tell a tale or two about bad dreams, too, and no-one thinks that they're going nuts. Even policemen get flashbacks. Mind you, nowadays coppers all seem to want to claim a million pounds compensation for seeing bad sights on a council estate. What did they expect to see when they joined the police force, for Christ's sake: social workers with clip boards? Anyway, I didn't need counselling about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from bullshitting trendy fakes like Doctor Eric Hepworth. (“Oooh, you mustn’t call him Doctor….he’s Mister Hepworth….!”)

  I spent a fair amount of time convincing our budding Sigmund Freud that I wasn't completely loony. It wasn't too difficult. He asked me lots of obvious bloody stupid questions about my childhood and if I felt ‘emotionally detached from events in my life’. Stuff like that. Hepworth saw me every other day for a month: he liked to talk. On the intervening days I think I mugged up on every article in the British Journal of Psychiatric Practice for the previous ten years. I had the run of the place and could sit quietly in the small clinical library without anyone bothering me or checking what I read. By the time I was through in there and on the internet, I'll bet I knew more about R. D. Laing and abreactive stress responses than Hepworth. That reading, and a clear remembrance of all I had been so painstakingly been taught on the interrogation course years ago, made conning Hepworth a pleasure. I began to string him along, being careful not to use the jargon.

  He loved it. ‘You have the potential for great violence’ he told me once. I told him of course I did – that’s what the SAS does. Yes, but was I adjusted to the realities of life? I told him that as far as I was concerned I was adjusted to the realities of my life. He liked that. Asked me all about v
iolence. I told him that I was adjusted to the reality of violence a damn sight better than he was. He loved it. ‘Did I think of myself as being psychopathic?’ I told him that he should see some of the other Special forces guys I’ve known.. I could show him some real psychos. He laughed and rubbed his hands and said how interesting it all was. Arsehole. But I had to string him along.

  He was more excited by my new, evolving, bright and balanced persona, and what it would mean to him, than by my dreams which never really went away. He was really strong on motivation, I remember; why did I do things? Did I feel emotion? How did I fell about my childhood? Did I feel that I was a detached personality? Did I like children? What did I feel when I had shot people? I wanted to tell him about the Iranian in the Hasak comcen and the snivelling little goat boy, tears of terror rolling down his cheeks - but I couldn’t. Anyway, I didn’t know if Mr bloody Hepworth was cleared for that kind of stuff. I kept quiet. But I couldn't afford to get a bad bill of health from a little creep like Hepworth, so my great 'recovery' was a source of well-balanced mutual congratulation The creepy little sod actually wanted to write a paper about me and my remarkable adjustment to potential PTSD - or so he said.

  In our last session he actually said to me, ‘You know, you are a very dangerous man.’ Quick as a flash, I cracked back at him, ‘I know….that’s why we get recruited for 22 SAS.’ He liked that. Roared with laughter and went off.

  The last I saw of the great Mr Hepworth - he hated being called 'Doc' - was him patting a nurse's rump. They hated him because he patronised them like mindless little girls, and when they complained, he airily justified it on the grounds that it was 'unrepressed normal behaviour... and anyway, they should take it as a compliment.' I told them to give him a smack to teach him a lesson, or scream sexual harassment, but of course, nobody did anything about Hepworth. He had more hang-ups than I had, I reckoned; but from then on I kept my trap shut about the bad dreams. I needed him. To this day a penetrating smell of B.O. on the Tube makes me think of psychiatry and Doctor Mr Eric bloody Hepworth.

  I came back from the final piece of my convalescence, a month in the West Indies using my saved up pay and leave, feeling better and more relaxed than I had for years. My tan covered the last traces of yellow, and my gauntness had faded, although I was never going to be selected for the Belorussian ladies shot putt team.

  Although I had undoubtedly become quieter - morose even - since the Kurdistan experience, and the vivid dreams still scored their silent horror movies in my head, I reckon I presented a balanced, if more introverted, figure by the time I returned. I had made a deliberate point of staying away from girls until I was better, but now, with a week to kill in London I reckoned I owed myself a few calls just to put my float back into the water, so to speak.

  I called Vicky. Vicky Barnes and I had been good friends about four years back. In fact, we'd been such good friends that in my last year in MOD, we'd moved in together and shared a flat. She was small and dark, with startling blue eyes and a sense of fun that never flagged. That was when I was moving around a lot and a cosy little pied à terre in Putney with Vicky Barnes to come home to had seemed like a good idea. Vicky had indicated that it was an admirable idea, and why didn't we arrange things more permanently?

  But I was too young to settle down. I laughed, and avoided the issue. I kept on avoiding it for that whole year, and when I got posted, I managed to fudge the issue still further. Then the first Special Ops job had come up, I'd had to go to Belize for six months, Vicky's firm offered her a lease on a flat nearer the City, and we drifted apart. I'd seen her lots of times since then. The last time was ... Good God! I suddenly realised that I hadn't seen Vicky for nearly two years.

  I called her number. There was no answer, so I took a cab and pottered off to the City, partly for an excuse to wander in the fresh air, partly to drop by the flat to see if she was still around. After an hour or so drifting around jewellers and tea shops, I took the lift to the flat. The name plate puzzled me; 'Mr and Mrs A.M. Cornish.' Vicki had obviously moved. I pressed the bell. Maybe they had her forwarding address.

  The man who answered the door was fleshy, dark, in his mid thirties, and wore the smooth striped shirt and discreetly dotted silk tie of the City man. I could smell the whisky on his breath. I introduced myself and explained why I was there. Immediately the dark face flushed. His reply shook me.

  "I've heard all about you. Well, Mrs Cornish," he emphasised the words, "my wife, is out, and she won't want to see you again."

  I stood there wordlessly. I hadn't expected that. Vicky? Married?

  "Didn't you hear me?" he added aggressively.

  "Yes. I'm sorry. Married?” I was taken aback. What do you say? “I didn't know. I've been away," I mumbled. A puff of warm opulent air floated out of the flat. It smelt of cigars and expensive perfume. I felt deflated and tired. He eyed me aggressively, probably fuelled by a mixture of drink and apprehension. It made him over-react.

  "I know all about you and Vicky," he started accusingly. "Well, she's my wife now, we're married and we're very happy." He gabbled. "I've bought this flat from her company, so it's my property, so don't you dare come round here causing trouble. I know what you do,... so hitting me won't do you any good," he added, rearing away with alarm. I realised I'd taken a step towards him.

  I shook my head, "No, no, I hadn't heard... "

  He looked at me, suddenly confident. "Have you been in prison?"

  "Prison?" I was startled. "Of course not."

  "I'm sorry, it's just that you look, so, well - ill. And you've lost a lot of weight, from Vicky's picture. She still has one. I think she was quite ... fond of you. But you disappeared, and well, I met her. I'm sorry."

  He was apologising uselessly. Babbling. Pratt. It was time to go. This was all a mistake.

  “No. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you. Or Vicky. You see, I didn't know she was married now." I walked towards the lift, while he stood irresolute in the door of the flat. The red leather moccasins leered incongruously from beneath the dark suit trousers.

  "She sent you an invitation, you know. To the wedding . "

  "Yes?" I stood waiting for the lift. "I was in hospital, I expect."

  "Oh. He looked embarrassed and confused. "I'll tell her. She didn't know. She was quite - you know, upset when she couldn't get in touch with you. I think she was quite hurt; if you know what I mean. You never wrote or phoned, did you?"

  "Yes. I know. Thanks." The lift arrived. "I'll send you a wedding present."

  "No, no, there's really no need. I didn't mean that."

  "Perhaps." I got in. The doors started to close. "Give her my love, and say goodbye for me."

  "Goodb ...". The doors cut him off. What a pratt. I could see him in twenty years time. Fat, balding, a successful stockbroker in a Surrey mock-Tudor pile. Probably a Daimler and screwing his secretary. And monogrammed red slippers from Jermyn Street. Poor old Vicky.

  Nevertheless, I was shaken by the visit.

  Not just by the hostility, which I could understand, but by the rejection. Of all the women I've known, I would have laid money on Vicky Barnes still being around. And I was puzzled by his remark about 'prison'. As I wandered listlessly to the underground I caught a glance of myself in a black glass window: bomber jacket, gaunt, with eyes startlingly bright in dark rimmed smudges and the shirt collar away from my neck. No wonder Cornish thought I'd been in the nick. All I needed was a brown paper parcel to complete the image. I looked like Central Casting's idea of a dope fiend in a James Dean movie.

  Taking a deep breath, I determined to fatten myself up before starting back to work.

  You can always find another woman. They’re like busses. Another one will always come along soon.

  Anyway, I had to report back for duty.

  CHAPTER 5

  London

  After nearly nine months away, my return to Directorate Special Forces was a low key affair.

  To my surprise my desk was fil
led by a pompous ex-Greenjacket with a blue chin, dark wavy hair which he self-consciously brushed back while he talked and a deep, patronizing voice. And he could talk all right. Apparently he had done great things in the Balkans and had once got an MBE for being brave somewhere. Big deal. I concealed my irritation and went looking for my mate, Alex Jackson. He'd visited me in the hospital bearing a bottle of The Balvenie. As I couldn't touch alcohol at the time it had been a pointless exercise, but the thought was good.

  It had made me laugh too, to see the affronted Matron's face before she ordered Alex out for trying to lead me astray. "What are you thinking of? Are you trying to kill him?" she had indignantly demanded in her lilting Welsh. "Out you go! Out with you. Disgraceful!" Alex had grinned.

  "Why not, Lady? He's tried to kill me often enough!" This was true, because I had left Alex in the lurch on a couple of occasion -- but never deliberately. Sometimes it just happens that way.

  I tore myself away from the patronizing questioning of the new recruit. De Court was his name, which prejudiced me even more. "Where's Alex?" I demanded.

  De Court looked shifty. "Haven't you heard? You'd better talk to the boss," he said, and that was all I could get out of him. Fuming, I stomped off to find Tony Bell. When I found him, I wished I hadn't.

  "Alex is dead. " Tony looked me square in the eye. "I wanted to be the one who told you. No-one else. He got run over on the Kuwait-UAE road by a truck."

  I must have looked appalled. "Yes. It shook us too. Alex was one of the best."

  "When? Why didn't anyone tell me?"

  "Last month. You were away on leave and anyway, it wouldn't have done you any good to be told. He'd gone out to relieve James Davidson as our Liaison Officer in the Gulf. Things are coming to the boil out there. Apparently it happened at dead of night. Dead straight road. Driving to the airport. The tanker just went straight over the Rover. Killed them both. All very odd. "