by Thomas Waugh
*
The dead of night. Devlin stood in his living room and stared at the message on his phone. He didn’t recognise the number. But he knew who the text was from.
He’s in the country. We need to meet .
The evening was balmy and starless. Clouds mottled the sky, like a bruise. Devlin had been careful not to wake Emma. She slept so peacefully, thoughtfully, as if she were praying. Violet yawned and padded her way across the wooden floor. She sat at his feet, her ears pricked to attention, cocking her head slightly. She raised her paw to his shin a couple of times, either to snap her gloomy looking master out of his reverie or, more likely, to prompt him to give her a biscuit from out of the cupboard which she often wistfully glanced up at.
Devlin could ignore the message or refuse to meet. Refuse to do what Birch would ask him to do. Beg him to do. Devlin had made a new life for himself.
But we are where we are.
The professional killer couldn’t escape his past. Or he didn’t want to.
3.
Just one more. That was all he needed. Devlin was tempted to pop into a newsagent to buy a pack of cigarettes. He nostalgically remembered how, when he first started to smoke as a teenager, shops would sell cigarettes individually. Especially to children. Devlin had quit smoking earlier on in the year, at the same time as Emma moved in with him. She didn’t ask him to stop. He just did, out of consideration for her. He also wanted to prove something to himself, as well as to Emma.
But he still missed the acrid, fragrant, moreish taste in his mouth. He missed the sensation of the cellophane being peeled off a fresh packet and the comfortable feeling of a cigarette resting between his fingers. He missed the sight of a silken tendril of smoke streaming up from an ashtray. Writhing. Dancing. Devlin kept his word however and hadn’t touched a cigarette since the morning Emma had moved in.
He made his way south, along Tower Bridge Road. A cool breeze tempered the heat of the midday June sun. He was due to meet Birch at the Huntsman & Hounds pub, just off East Street. Devlin was wearing jeans, a loose fitting purple t-shirt and white Reeboks. He blended in and looked anonymous.
He arrived at the pub early. He wanted to have a drink first and collect his final thoughts before Birch arrived. Devlin’s nearest local was The Admiral Nelson but he felt it was too close to home, to discuss what they needed to discuss. He often drank in the Huntsman when he wanted a quiet drink, without fear of Emma walking in on him. Michael Robertson, the landlord of the Nelson, had also treated him differently (with either a wariness or awe), after Devlin violently ejected a few drunken city traders from the pub six months ago.
The Huntsman had recently re-opened and been refurbished. The owners had sensibly retained the smoked glass windows and the old wooden bar, gleaming with varnish and a thousand spilled drinks which had seeped into the grain over the years. Sepia-tinged photographs of Walworth Road and East Street Market, populated by flat-cap wearing costermongers, decorated the walls. The old brickwork and some of the original fittings remained exposed and gave the venue character. A mahogany bookcase sat in one corner. Patrons would leave and take books. When Devlin was last there, the previous week, he dropped off a copy of Conrad’s Lord Jim and picked up Call for the Dead, by John le Carre. A worn, toffee brown sofa sat in the opposite corner, somewhat out of place. The rumour was that the owner had picked it up second-hand from a seedy strip club in Shoreditch. A couple of the regulars were tempted to run a black light over it, to confirm their suspicions. But they then thought better of it. Ignorance was bliss, they concluded. Thankfully the pub was devoid of televisions and overly intrusive music.
Devlin nodded to Terry Gilby, the amiable landlord of the pub. Terry replied with a smile and, most importantly, a pint. Far more than a local politician, priest or social worker, Terry listened with patience and sympathy to his customers’ problems. And far more than any politician, priest or social worker, Terry was also able to fix their problems, albeit temporarily, with a drink.
Devlin greeted a couple of regulars, who he knew from previous visits to the pub, and bought a round.
“I’m just due to have a meeting but I’ll join you for a couple later,” Devlin said, downing half his refreshing pint in a few gulps. The beer temporarily quenched his desire for a cigarette.
I’ll need a real drink by then. To forget about myself. And what I’ll have to do.
Birch entered. Devlin offered up a smile for his friend, hoping that it was imbued with pleasure at seeing him rather than pity. Birch gruffly exclaimed that he could manage, as he awkwardly manoeuvred his wheelchair up the step and through the door of the pub. Devlin surveyed his friend. His face was gaunt, his cheeks hollowed out like a couple of old stone castle embrasures. When, or if, Birch grinned now his expression would no longer possess a cherubic quality. The sanguine had become the choleric. The stumps of his legs, as well as his torso, were withered. His skin was no longer tanned, but rather tinged with jaundice. His eyes were glassy and red-rimmed. Birch wore a stained polo shirt and black tracksuit bottoms, pock-marked with various cigarette burns. Faded tattoos – of Gillingham FC’s club badge and 3 Para’s insignia – brandished his hairy forearms.
Devlin insisted on getting his friend a drink – a pint of bitter with a large whisky chaser – and the two men found a table in the corner. As they positioned themselves however a couple of other people entered the pub and sat on an adjacent table, limiting the scope of what they could discuss.
“Have you seen anyone from the regiment recently?” Devlin asked, hoping that Birch still had a network of companionship and support. It would help expunge the guilt he felt at having not kept in touch with his friend.
Birch shrugged his sloping shoulders in reply. Devlin remembered how his shoulders used to once stand to attention at right angles. His bull-neck had turned into turkey wattle.
“I went to some benefit thing about a month back,” Birch remarked, his voice rough with cigarettes and bitterness. “At least the drink was free. Hyde was there. He’s got a job with some big American company. He’s put on plenty of weight. Perhaps it’s to help him fit in better over there. I also bumped into Cheeseman. He’s just got married. She’s young enough to be his daughter, the lucky bastard. I met her. Blonde, as you’d expect. Her two best assets are there for the world to see – and I’m not talking about her brains or personality. She’ll doubtless cheat on him at some point – but not before he cheats on her… Tyerman was there too. He asked after you, said that he’d hoped you’d be at the party. He wants you to get in touch with him. I think he wants to offer you a job. All he could offer me was the number of some counsellor. But all they do is ask questions. None of them have any answers to anything. God knows how many of them have asked me about my childhood. I tell them that my mother and father didn’t shoot me in the legs and ruin my fucking life. For the money the government pays these quacks for each session they may as well buy me a bottle of Talisker. I’d feel better then,” the ex-soldier remarked, half-joking, before downing the dregs of his whisky. He refrained from telling his friend that Tyerman smoothed things over later at the party, when Birch drunkenly groped a waitress and the manager of the venue wanted to throw him out.
Although Devlin frequently sent cheques to various charities associated with the regiment he had long given up attending the gatherings and events they arranged. He wanted to put the war and his life as a soldier behind him. Afghanistan had been a fool’s errand in many ways. The army baulked at calling it a defeat. But the British and Americans had poked a hornet’s nest – and got stung. The once Great Game, in the nineteenth century, turned into a campaign of Whac-A-Mole. The army would seemingly knock-down the Taliban in one location, only for it to pop up in another position a week later. The allies also had one hand tied behind their backs in the form of nervous, stingy and incompetent administrations who refused to let the likes of Tyerman and General Petraeus take the fight to the enemy. Many of the schools that the army had helped to s
et up and provide security for were now being disbanded. Half the Afghan army resembled the Keystone Cops, whilst the remainder would switch their allegiance to the enemy as quickly as night turns into day, or as soon as the bribe went into a pocket. For both the Taliban – and poppy growers – it was business as usual. They had won the war.
Birch began to drum his nicotine-stained fingers on the table, as he impatiently waited for the couple in earshot to finish their drinks and leave. Although their backs were turned to him he still gave them looks like daggers when they laughed, or when they debated getting another drink in. He puffed out his cheeks in relief when they declined to do so however. As soon as the pair were heading towards the door Birch leaned towards Devlin, his eyes as wide as a zealot, and urgently spoke:
“I’ve found the bastard. He’s here in London - staying at The Ritz. I’ve got his name on Google Alert and something popped up last week. Apparently, he’s part of an Afghan trade delegation.”
Devlin calmly nodded his head in reply, whilst twisting his wedding ring around his finger. Emma said she was fine with him still wearing the gold band Holly gave him. She could be so understanding and lovely at times that it hurt. Through a gap in the smoked glass he saw a shabbily dressed man limping across the street, his jaw and eye heavily bruised. Yet Devlin strangely envied the forlorn figure. As he was smoking.
“I know. I went online and did some research, after I received your message. He will be well guarded. The hotel will be filled, wall-to-wall, with cameras. It’s doubtful we’ll be able to get our hands on his schedule to select an optimum venue and time. Usually a job like this needs weeks of planning,” Devlin said, doubt and caution seasoning his tone, as he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He wryly smiled to himself, on the inside, as in the past Oliver Porter used to send him texts this time of day, proposing that they meet to talk about a job. Yet the text on Devlin’s phone now was merely a message, informing him that his new flat-pack bookcases were due to be delivered to his apartment tomorrow morning.
“Are you trying to back out or to talk yourself out of it? Because you won’t be able to change my mind. I’ve waited years for this. I’ve thought about killing the bastard since that first night in the hospital, when the fucker took my legs and life away. When you made your promise. When you gave your word of honour.” Spittle came out of his mouth and flecked the table.
Devlin furrowed his brow, either reliving the sorrow of the attack in the village or regretting the vow he made. A man can’t outrun his shadow, or escape his past.
“I’ll keep my word,” he replied, either defiantly or defensively.
“This is not all about me. This is also about getting justice for Christopher. The only way we can. You know I’d do it myself, if I could. If I wasn’t in this,” Birch asserted, his face contorted in frustration and enmity, as he banged the sides of his wheelchair. Terry – and the regulars – briefly turned around but then buried their heads back into their pints. Devlin had also positioned himself so that he blocked any view of the raw rage and resentment smouldering in Birch’s features.
Murdering Rameen wouldn’t bring Christopher back, Devlin thought – rather than saying it out loud.
“I know,” he remarked, nodding his head in agreement. Devlin remembered how trigger-happy Birch had been back in Helmand. He didn’t lack for courage, albeit some might have questioned his ability to shoot accurately.
“You must have taken on more difficult jobs, at shorter notice,” Birch whispered.
Although Devlin couldn’t be wholly sure whether he regretted making his promise to kill Rameen Jamal, he was beginning to regret his decision to tell his friend about his former profession. He had done so when Birch had been at a low ebb. Devlin wanted to show to his friend that he trusted him – and that he could easily afford to give him the envelope of money he left on the crippled soldier’s bedside table. Birch reacted by saying, half-jokingly at best, that he wished he had enough money to hire Devlin and fly him to Kabul, to kill Jamal there. Birch also enjoyed hearing about some of the jobs. Most of the targets deserved to die. Murdering corrupt politicians, pension stealing businessmen and debt-ridden B-list celebrities wouldn’t cure the world of all its evils, Birch thought. But it was a start.
“I’ve taken on more difficult jobs. We just need to be careful. I have to think about Emma though. I’ve retired and forged a new life for myself.”
Should Porter have offered him a similar contract then Devlin would have walked away, with no regrets. There were too many unknowns. There was no time to properly reconnoitre the target and location. ‘Normal life’ may have dulled the steel it took to pull the trigger too.
I could be rusty…Train hard, fight easy. Fail to prepare, fail to prepare.
“But I’ll do it,” Devlin added, with more resignation than determination. A promise is a promise.
The past lingered, like the taste of cigarettes.
4.
The two men had a couple more drinks, but mainly sat in silence. Brooding, for different reasons. More than most, soldiers keep their own council. Just before Birch left, Devlin reached into his pocket and pulled out a half-inch thick brown envelope.
“Are you okay for money?”
Birch shrugged his sloping shoulders again, unwilling to admit how desperate he was. He still, just about, had his pride. But he took the money.
For the next couple of hours Devlin had a drink with Terry and a stream of regulars, who drifted in and out of pub.
Drink lubricated the atmosphere. No one virtue signalled. No one talked about the latest reality television show. People just laughed and joked with others – and about themselves. The afternoon sun glinted off a brass plaque, which hung over the bar: “When you have lost your Inns then drown your empty selves, for you would have lost the last of England.” Hillaire Belloc.” Devlin didn’t quite know if he was being himself or forgetting about himself. But the laughter and jokes were as welcome as a cigarette. Perhaps even more so.
Devlin squinted and turned his face away from the blast of light and warm air that hit him on leaving the pub. He sent a message to Emma to say he would be home soon – and that he would take her out for dinner that evening. He also sent a message to Oliver Porter, asking for a meeting as soon as possible. He would call in a favour from his former employer. Devlin needed to get away with murder, again.
*
Porter was couched in a new black, leather Eames chair in his office, at home, when he received the message from Devlin. He raised his eyebrow in mild surprise and, such was the curiosity or concern he felt, put his glass of Sancerre back on his desk rather than to his lips. Distinguished flecks of silvery-grey coloured his slicked-back hair. He wore a Brooks Brothers cream linen summer suit, along with a tailored pale blue shirt from Harvie & Hudson. Polished gold cufflinks and a vintage Patek Phillipe watch adorned his wrists. As a hangover from his time as a Guards officer Porter was clean shaven. Sometimes he even shaved twice a day. He liked the way his wife cupped her slender hands around his face. It was both sweet and sensual. Porter’s face was also tanned, from a recent family holiday to Florida. He broke a promise he made to himself that he would never set foot inside Disney World, “the high temple of vulgarity. Filled with plebs.” And the place proved even more awful than he imagined, both in terms of the cuisine and overly sentimental people. “For every selfie they upload, God should take a day off their life,” he had remarked, in earnest, to his wife – shaking his head in disappointment as much as disparagement just before he took a bite of a greasy beef burger (whilst closing his eyes and picturing himself back in Boisdale).
Porter now maintained a study inside the house instead of working in a specially constructed outbuilding at the end of the garden in his home, situated in a village just outside of Windsor. Porter had largely retired from his job as a fixer. He certainly refrained from taking on any contracts that operatives such as Devlin fulfilled. Having become a target of the Parker brothers six months ago,
Porter decided to take stock of his life, while he still could. With the help of Devlin, he retired the gangsters - permanently. Porter only took on consultancy work now and acted as a facilitator for putting relevant people in contact with one another. He didn’t miss the long hours, or threats to his life. Instead of reading intelligence reports - or emails from oleaginous representatives of thuggish Russian oligarchs - the latest thriller by Michael Dobbs sat open on his antique walnut desk (which the dealer claimed had once belonged to Ford Madox Ford). A portrait of his great-grandfather, a ruddy-faced bushy-moustached cavalry officer from the Great War, gazed out imperiously across the room. A thick column of smoke, from a King of Denmark cigar, vaunted upwards.
Porter spent most of his time at home nowadays, instead of attending meetings in Geneva or at the Garrick Club. He went shopping with his wife, Victoria, or spent idle afternoons fly-fishing on the Kennett. He drove his children to school and picked them up. He was teaching his youngest son how to play the piano and bought his eldest son an air rifle, which they used to shoot at foxes from the drawing room window. “Ideally, I’d like a socialist or Gerry Adams to come into our sights,” he had wistfully remarked to the boy. On the advice of Devlin, Porter bought a dog and regularly walked the handsome looking – but admittedly slightly dotty – Dalmatian, which the ex-soldier had affectionately named Marlborough. As a result of the extra exercise provided by Marlborough Porter had lost some, albeit not all, of his paunch. He smoked and drank a little less – and duly looked and felt healthier. Life was good.