Arms and the Women

by Reginald Hill

  ‘Thanks, anyway,’ said Wield. ‘What now, Pete? I’m out of ideas.’

  Pascoe smiled as if at an absurdity and said, ‘OK, let’s suppose this guy left his own car here and walked round to watch my house because he felt he’d draw less attention on foot. He steals Daphne’s car because he needs to get back here quick, but he isn’t panicking. He still takes time to wipe his prints. If he’s as cool as that, he wouldn’t park next to his own car because that’s the kind of thing that draws attention, a man jumping out of one car and getting straight into another. So he parks, gets out, and walks.’

  As if doing a reconstruction, Pascoe set off at a brisk pace with Wield in close pursuit.

  ‘Doesn’t help us unless we get a witness saw him walking,’ panted the sergeant.

  ‘I know. But listen, parking’s bad around here. Not a lot of room.’

  Wield could see he was right, but not what he was getting at. In front of the shops there was kerbside parking space for only half a dozen cars. In one direction Leyburn Road curved into a double-yellow-line bend and in the other it ran into the busy ring road via a roundabout, beside which stood a pseudo-Victorian shiny-tiles-and-leaded-lights pub, the Gateway.

  It was the pub Pascoe was heading for.

  As he walked he explained, ‘When it’s busy here, shoppers often use the pub car park. Billy Soames, the landlord, wants to avoid getting into dispute with the shopkeepers, so he’s put up a sign at the entrance: No charge to shoppers, but it helps if you at least buy a packet of crisps in the bar! Could be that’s where chummy parked his own car. Let’s ask Billy if he noticed a small suntanned man with a moustache using his facilities this morning.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Wield.

  His mobile rang. He put it to his ear and listened. When he switched off, Pascoe, who, like an astronomer after a lifetime’s study of the pocked and pitted surface of the moon, had learned to interpret a few of the sergeant’s expressions, said, ‘You look pleased.’

  ‘Something I recalled from house-to-house yesterday. One of your neighbours, Mrs Cavendish, noticed a car stopping at the end of the street then turning back when all the troops had turned up. Didn’t seem important then. But it popped into my mind just now when we got Mrs Aldermann’s description of the man who attacked her, so I checked it out.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Her words were, the man was swarthy, moustachioed and sinister.’

  ‘That sounds like old Mrs C.,’ said Pascoe. ‘And the car?’

  ‘Metallic-blue. Sounds like a Golf. Could be owt or nowt but the description fits, sort of. She half remembered a bit of the number too, so if it turns out there was a blue Golf in the pub car park…’

  ‘Anyone ever tell you you’re a treasure?’ said Pascoe.

  ‘Not since breakfast. By the by, that guy we talked about this morning, the student, Franny Roote. I never saw him. This sound anything like?’

  ‘Not like the way he was back then. Size might fit, but he was blond.’

  ‘Perhaps prison’s turned him black.’

  ‘Perhaps. I’ll find out tomorrow. Somehow I doubt he’s got anything to do with this, but if he has, could be the sight of me will make a good gloat irresistible.’

  ‘You still fancy Cornelius, do you?’

  ‘Don’t know. Maybe. There’s something odd going on there. You know that they found this message on her computer at the bank? It just said, TIME TO GO. And there was another on her e-mail at her apartment. STILL HERE? OH DEAR. Unsourced, but dated the day she took off. So there’s someone in the background.’

  ‘Ollershaw, you think? Trying to scare her into making a run for it? But he didn’t want her caught and talking, so now he wants to pressure you to get her out?’

  Wield’s tone was dubious.

  ‘Doesn’t sound likely, does it?’ said Pascoe. ‘And I tend to agree with Andy about Ollershaw. Slippery but not physical. Anyway, I’m back in court with her tomorrow, so if someone really is trying to twist my arm to go easy opposing the bail application, then they’ll need to get in touch soon.’

  They had reached the pub.

  The landlord greeted them with the wariness all landlords exhibit on spotting the fuzz on the premises, but soon relaxed when he understood the nature of their enquiries. Inured by long experience to disappointment or at best ambiguity, Pascoe was almost taken aback when Billy Soames said instantly, ‘Yeah. Sure. I remember them.’

  ‘Them?’

  ‘That’s right. I saw them arrive, two of them got out of the car, the little dark one set off down the road and the other one came in and ordered a pint of Guinness and a bag of crisps. First customer of the day. He sat there reading his paper for maybe three-quarters of an hour, then his mate looked through the door and sort of beckoned like he was in a hurry. And the pop-eyed one got up straightaway and went out.’

  ‘Pop-eyed? What do you mean?’

  ‘He had these sort of bulging eyes. Light-coloured hair going a bit thin. About forty. Big scar, newish-looking, along the left side of his head. Pasty complexion, didn’t look like he spent much time in the sun.’

  ‘And the car? Did you spot the make, Billy?’

  ‘Merc sports. White.’

  ‘Oh. Not a blue Golf,’ said Pascoe stupidly.

  The landlord gave Pascoe a long-suffering look and said judiciously, ‘Well, it wasn’t blue, it was white, and it wasn’t a Golf, it was a Merc, so I’d have to say no, Peter, unless I’m deceived, it wasn’t a blue Golf. Sorry to be such a disappointment.’

  ‘You’ve done great,’ Pascoe assured him.

  Wield said, ‘Where was he sitting?’

  ‘Over there. By the window.’

  Wield wandered across and picked up a newspaper from the windowsill.

  ‘Was this the paper he was reading?’

  ‘Probably.’

  Carefully Wield fitted the paper into an evidence bag.

  ‘Which way did the car go?’ asked Pascoe.

  ‘Out onto the bypass,’ said the landlord. ‘All this any help to you?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Pascoe, knowing the value of friendly eyes and ears in public houses. ‘Tremendous. Billy, you are a prince among publicans.’

  ‘I’ll remember that next time I’m being hassled about after-hours drinking.’

  ‘Anything else you can tell us about the man you served?’

  ‘Popeye? Not really. Didn’t have much of a crack, got a delivery just after I served him. Except the way he spoke, that is.’

  ‘And how was that?’

  ‘Well, drinking the Guinness it didn’t surprise me. He was Irish.’

  viii

  spelt from Sibyl’s leaves

  I’m Popeye the pop-up man…

  So called because he’s harder to keep down than Bounce-back Bill Clinton.

  Started way back on Bloody Sunday when eleven-year-old schoolboy Patrick Ducannon, uninvolved son of uninvolved parents got shot by the paras.

  Registered d.o.a. at Belfast Infirmary, but sat up and asked for his mammy when the priest dropped some hot candle wax on him. (Well, that’s the crack, and why not? No reason the devil and Gaw Sempernel should have all the good stories.)

  After that, of course he was involved.

  And very unlucky or very lucky depending on how close to him you were standing.

  Age twenty: dragged out of an exploded bomb factory in Derry covered with burnt flesh and bleeding offal, most of which turned out to belong to his two fellow ham-fisted bombardiers who in death proved so inseparable they had to be buried in the same grave.

  Age twenty-four: shot as he drove a stolen car through a checkpoint. Car crashed through a wall and rolled down a railway embankment. Three passengers killed instantaneously. Popeye crawled out of the wreckage and ran down a tunnel from which he emerged a few moments later pursued by a train. Three days in hospital, three years in jail.

  Age twenty-nine: shot, stabbed and beaten by a unit of the UVF as he lay in his bed with his girlfrie
nd. She died four days later. He went to her funeral.

  Age thirty-three: retired from active service with the IRA, perhaps because of his reputation for out-living everyone he worked closely with. Became a quartermaster, specializing in the acquisition of cutting-edge weaponry which was put in deep storage against the long promised day of total insurrection.

  Kept out of trouble for a while till one winter’s night in Liverpool docks he turned up in the cab of a truck carrying a consignment of arms which we knew had been landed somewhere on the east coast during the previous forty-eight hours.

  Straightforward search-and-detain operation went haywire when one of the Provos suddenly reached into his jacket pocket. By the time it was established he was suffering an anxiety asthma attack and was pulling out his inhaler, he was dead, as were two of his companions and even Popeye, naturally the sole survivor, was seriously injured. Worse still (in the Great Gaw’s eyes at least, for he was in charge of the operation), the truck turned out to be carrying only a small part-load of ammo and a few rifles, not the large consignment of state-of-the-art weaponry Gaw had expected.

  It must have been cached en route and there was only you left, Pop-up Popeye, who had any idea where.

  That got you off the NHS waiting list and into Gaw’s own favourite hospital where you got better care than a royal who was a fully paid up member of BUPA. But it was still a close-run thing. Intensive care for two months, convalescent for another six, offered a deal which you refused so reluctantly that it was hard not to believe your medically supported claim that your injuries had left you seriously amnesiac.

  The court, however, was unimpressed by this as a defence against the long list of charges prepared against you.

  Sentenced to twelve years.

  So Popeye the pop-up man, it looked like the system had done what its trained shooters couldn’t and buried you.

  But…

  I’m Popeye the pop-up man

  Let them hit me as hard as they can

  I’ll be here at the finish…

  Came the peace process.

  Age thirty-seven: released from jail after serving less than two years.

  Maybe it was enough.

  You and I have a lot in common, Popeye. Members of ruthless and dangerous organizations, we have both had to learn to survive any which way we could.

  And we both have unfinished business with Gawain Sempernel. Or rather, I have unfinished business with him while he has unfinished business with you.

  He’s going soon. He thinks no one beneath him knows it but you cannot keep a Sibyl and a secret at the same time.

  And you, Popeye, are his farewell finger to the envious gods who he believes cannot bear such rival effulgence near their throne. Six months from now he hopes to be clasped to the bosom of our common alma mater, in the holy shrine of a Master’s Lodge, where he will sit with one buttock firmly on the faces of those poor dons whose careers are in his gift, and the other discreetly offered for former colleagues to kiss when they beat a path to his door in search of that advice and expertise only his lost omniscience can offer.

  The poor sod has overdosed on Deighton and Le Carré!

  So there you are, Popeye. We have both been screwed by Gaw Sempernel.

  In fact, you could say that, thanks to him, in our different ways we both know what it is to exist locked up in a cell.

  And now, though I am officially the turnkey, we find ourselves cheek by jowl in this cell within a cell that the great comedian Gaw calls Sibyl’s Leaves.

  Imprisonment changes people. It gives them time to think.

  I think a lot.

  Popeye too. What he thought was probably something like – it’s coming to an end. Maybe I can finally get a life which doesn’t involve my old body being full of bullets and surrounded by corpses. I’ve survived the war, surely it can’t be all that hard to survive the peace?

  It was going to be harder than you could have dreamt, Popeye.

  You found a movement split and splintering under pressure of internal debate as to how to proceed in face of the new situation.

  Worse, despite your continuing claims of amnesia, you found yourself courted by the most extreme groups for your knowledge of where the arms were hidden.

  There must have been lots of heated debate.

  There were certainly hairy moments when you were threatened with having the information tortured out of you by men who thought that Amnesia was a popular Far Eastern sexual tourism centre.

  Still, a man who has survived being interrogated by Gaw Sempernel can survive anything.

  But something had to give.

  Finally, confused as to whether you were victor or victim, unable to understand whether you’d got what you’d been fighting for or not, you decided like many a thwarted philosopher before you that it was time to cultivate your own garden.

  Maybe it was now your memory came back. Maybe it had never gone.

  And if it brought you peril, it might as well bring you profit too.

  Uniting for safety with a small group of fellow disenchanted releasees who thought that being applauded onto the platform at a Republican meeting was little enough reward for what they’d been through, you advertised for customers. And when you found your former colleagues less than keen to pay for what they regarded as already their own, you looked further afield.

  A couple of minor but lucrative European and near-East deals followed. But your ace-in-the hole, the ‘biggie’ which was going to make your retirement fortune was the cache of state-of-the-art guns and missiles you’d left buried somewhere deep in enemy country during that cross country trip which ended in the Liverpool fiasco.

  We know now (and as usual with Popeye, we’ve got the bodies to prove it) that the chosen site was a remote and inaccessible spur of Kielder Forest on the English/Scottish border.

  For this cache you wanted a customer with serious money.

  What you found was PAL, the smallest but most extreme of the Colombian guerilla groups, fallen on hard times not so much because of the activities of the official counter-insurgency forces, but because its immodestly, though not altogether inaccurately, self-styled ‘legendary’ leader, Fidel Chiquillo, had managed to get up the noses of high command in both Farc and ELN, the two most powerful rebel organizations.

  They set about squeezing PAL out of existence by drying up its source of arms in the Americas. Word was spread; you sell to PAL, you don’t sell to us.

  So here we have Chiquillo, desperate to re-establish himself on the Colombian scene, ready to go anywhere to do a deal. He has a contact in Europe, his negotiator, who sniffs out the deal with Popeye.

  But even so far afield, deals are not easy for Chiquillo to make.

  To get himself safe to the UK, to do the deal securely, then to get the shipment intact to South America, he needs allies powerful enough to ignore Farc, ELN, the drug barons and even the elected government itself.

  So he turns to the los Cojos, that is el Consejo Juridico, the national security group whose operations are so clandestine they make the official secret police look like Dixon of Dock Green. Their jefe supremo, Colonel Gonzalo Solis (who lost a foot in a bomb attack in 1981, hence the nickname cojo, the lame one), knows where all the bodies are buried, which is not surprising as he has buried so many of them himself. Colombian politicians need to be nimble-footed indeed to satisfy the conflicting demands of such rapidly changing partners as the guerilla groups, the drug lords, the United Nations and their own electorate, and over many years, El Cojo has come to call the steps. He is the only man powerful enough to guarantee the deal, but even he hesitates before going up against the loose anti-PAL alliance which applies in the Americas.

  But in the end the offer of a commission to be paid in Colombia’s favourite currency, pure cocaine, equal to the amount required by Popeye for his weapons proves impossible to resist.

  The PAL embargo back home, he decrees, does not apply to deals done in Europe.

  And to tho
se in both high and low places who are ready to protest against his decision, he offers a private reassurance that there is no risk of a PAL resurgence. Indeed, quite the contrary. Chiquillo must come personally to close the deal as El Cojo’s guarantee of safe conduct applies only to the guerilla leader himself, not his negotiator. And once the deal is done, the Cojos’ European chief, Jorge Casaravilla, a man so ruthlessly violent that the colonel likes to keep him several thousand miles of blue water away, has instructions to scoop up everything and everyone with extreme prejudice.

  Chiquillo agrees to the terms and makes his payment to El Cojo. His negotiator makes the final arrangements, and at last, by ways and means undetectable even by the eagle eye of soaring Gaw and the strange magic of his Sibyl, Chiquillo arrives in the UK and goes with his two Cojos escorts to the rendezvous in Kielder.

  Anyone familiar with Popeye Ducannon’s track record might have forecast what happened next.

  As always, chaos, catastrophe, corpses, and blood on the forest floor.

  And, equally as always, when the gunsmoke settles, Popeye pops up out of the forest with nothing worse than a couple of flesh wounds, a crease along the side of his skull, and a bad headache.

  All this and more he tells his one surviving colleague, Jimmy Amis, known as Amity James because of the friendly way he has with him when blowing off your kneecaps.

  And all this and more Amity tells us when we pick him up and shake several credit cards under several names out of his pockets and point out that having qualified for early release under the Good Friday Agreement does not disqualify him from early return under the common law.

  The more he tells us is that Popeye heard Chiquillo, the other survivor, telling someone on his mobile that he’d be with them at somewhere called the CP in two to three hours.

  If he made it, that was. For according to Popeye, Chiquillo had taken a hit.

  More importantly to Popeye, he’d taken both the weaponry and the bagful of coke which was payment for it.

  Having worked all his life in a twilight world of deceit and betrayal, Popeye isn’t much bothered by the whys and wherefores. All he wants is what he regards as his pension fund back. The only clue he has is what he knows about Chiquillo’s negotiator. This, together with what the Cojos know about Chiquillo himself, might well lead them to both the man and the arms.