Sabbathman

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘You awake?’ Annie whispered.

  Kingdom grunted, rolling over. Their interdepartmental meeting had lasted all of five minutes. Despite the third bottle of wine, the rest of the evening had been a disaster.

  ‘Here,’ Annie said now, ‘drink this.’

  She found his hand in the darkness and gave him a glass. It was water.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve been thinking.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes.’ Kingdom could see her teeth in the darkness. It meant that she was smiling. ‘You could back off. It’s not too late. You could tell them you don’t want the job.’

  ‘This job? Allder? Tell him I can’t cope?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because then we wouldn’t have all this … you know … we could just get on with it. Like before.’

  ‘You in your job?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Me making the tea?’

  ‘Don’t be silly. You’d just go back to ordinary duties. They’d understand.’

  Kingdom laughed. ‘You’re joking,’ he said tersely. ‘In any case, I need the fucking money. What with Dad and everything.’

  ‘I thought you said your brother-in-law had chipped in?’

  ‘He has.’

  ‘So what’s the problem?’

  Kingdom peered up at her in the darkness. ‘You know how long a grand lasts?’ he said, ‘at agency rates?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘About a month. Just over.’

  ‘So what happens then? Come November?’

  ‘You tell me.’ Kingdom sipped at the water again. ‘But what I don’t need is Allder on my back. With that guy, you either hack it or you’re out. Ordinary duties isn’t a phrase he understands.’

  Annie didn’t say anything. Kingdom could hear her swallowing the last of the water.

  ‘What about you?’ he said at last. ‘Why don’t you back off? Make a little room for us?’

  There was another silence, then a soft laugh and a clunk as she returned the empty glass to the bedside cabinet.

  ‘Is that some kind of joke,’ she said, ‘or are you serious?’

  Three hours later, waking again, Kingdom heard the soft thud of the newspaper he’d ordered being dropped outside the door. He was still retrieving The Citizen when Annie emerged from the bathroom. She was wearing a stylish two-piece, cut low around the neck, and she was having trouble with one of her earrings. Kingdom returned to bed. The glass of water in the middle of the night had done nothing for his headache, and he felt slightly sick. He began to unfold the paper, taking in the enormous headline. SABBATHMAN, it ran, WORLD EXCLUSIVE.

  Annie knelt on the bed beside him. She offered him the earring, one of a pair Kingdom had given her in Belfast, a delicate silver circle with the shape of a dove suspended inside.

  ‘Please?’ she said.

  Kingdom laid the paper on the wreckage of the bed. Beneath a blow-up of the latest Sabbathman communiqué, there was a line of three photographs: Blanche, Bairstow, and now Carpenter.

  Kingdom began to ease the silver hook into Annie’s earlobe. Trying to focus on the tiny hole made his head ache even more. Annie had finished with the front page, turning over. On page two, another photo. This time it showed the executive from The Citizen whom Allder had mentioned delivering a large envelope to a uniformed policeman outside New Scotland Yard. Below, in a signed article, the paper’s editor explained just how responsibly The Citizen had behaved. The headline, this time, warned: WHY THEY MUST BE CAUGHT!

  Kingdom finished with the earring. He was frowning. ‘They?’ he said. ‘Why they?’

  Annie was looking at the paper. She pointed to another piece on the facing page. The paper’s Northern Ireland correspondent was warning that the Provisionals had ‘mobilised’. There were rumours out of Belfast that ‘terrorist chiefs’ had ordered ‘the big push’. The link with the mysterious Sabbathman was evidently explicit. ‘Are these the perfect killings?’ the final paragraph began. ‘A lethal weekly message from the Provos – aimed at the heart of the British establishment?’

  Kingdom looked up. Annie was standing by the door. She had her suitcase in one hand and her car keys in the other.

  ‘Off already?’ Kingdom asked.

  Annie nodded, doing her best to smile. For the first time, Kingdom realised that she’d been crying.

  ‘I’d suggest breakfast,’ she said bleakly, ‘but I don’t want you upsetting the waitresses.’

  The hotel was on the edges of Havant. By nine o’clock, Kingdom was sitting in a barber shop in the town centre, listening to a youth with a nose stud explaining why a Grade One crew cut was his only sensible option.

  ‘What happened, man?’ he kept muttering. ‘Traffic accident?’

  Kingdom ignored the jibe. High on the back wall of the shop was a television. It was tuned to one of the morning magazine shows, and Kingdom could watch it in the mirror. Already, back in the hotel, he’d seen a little of the news coverage. The BBC, it seemed, had established some kind of presence outside Clare Baxter’s house, and the presenter in the London studio was firing questions to a succession of interviewees about the progress of the investigation. Hampshire’s Deputy Chief Constable was promising ‘a nationwide hunt’ while a pundit from some think tank or other had speculated darkly about ‘the threat to legitimate government’. There was no such thing, he seemed to be saying, as ‘absolute security’. Anyone with support, and determination, and the relevant skills could blow a large hole in the most carefully laid plans, and for this proposition the Sabbathman killings appeared to be ample proof. Pressed to explain the word ‘support’, the pundit acknowledged at once that no one on his own could have pulled off all three murders. Somewhere along the line he had to have backing, which meant that the nation was confronting not a solo killer, a lone assassin, but some kind of conspiracy. This latter thought was put to the last of the interviewees, and Kingdom had returned from the shower, towelling himself dry, to find Arthur Sperring’s face on screen, pondering the question. ‘Someone’s been killed,’ he growled at last. ‘If you’re talking about facts, that’s all we know.’

  Now, in the barber’s chair, Kingdom’s eyes left the television and watched the last of his hair disappearing under the busy clippers. The face that was emerging beneath the bristle was the face of a stranger: pensive, hollow-cheeked, the eyes deeply sunk, the beak of a nose somehow longer and thinner than ever. The image was mildly shocking, not the person he thought he knew, and looking at himself, Kingdom was reminded of the faces he’d first seen at school, the afternoon the history teacher had shown the ‘O’ level year a film about the Nazi holocaust. The sequence that had stuck in his mind had nothing to do with gas chambers or burial pits. Instead, it showed men jumping into the snow from a line of railway cattle wagons. Stumbling upright, some of them had looked straight into the waiting camera lens, and they were mirror images of what Kingdom now saw before him. They looked suspicious. They looked bewildered. They’d come a long way in great discomfort for no good purpose. And now, deep down, they knew there was worse to come.

  Kingdom frowned, surprised and disturbed by the way his mind was working. His eyes returned to the television. On the magazine show they were still discussing the Carpenter killing but the focus had changed from the earlier news shows. Now, in the studio, the wife of a backbench Tory MP was confirming that the pressures of contemporary politics were intolerable. Parliamentary hours were absurd. The facilities were mediaeval. Family life was a joke. Small wonder the weaker brethren went to the wall. The show’s presenter, heavily pregnant, eased into the obvious question: was Carpenter the exception or the rule? How could any political marriage survive?

  The MP’s wife squirmed on the sofa, laughing nervously. ‘My husband’s never been shot,’ she said, ‘if that’s what you’re getting at.’

  Back at the police station, Kingdom found Arthur Sperring in his office. His morning appearance on nationw
ide television seemed to have cheered him up. Expecting a dig or two about the haircut, Kingdom was relieved when the DCS nodded gleefully at the telephone.

  ‘You know what they’ve given me now?’ he said. ‘Now that the penny’s dropped? All this coverage? Radio? Telly? The press boys?’ he grinned. Three hundred men. ‘Three hundred blokes. Can you imagine the catering problems? Getting them all down there? Transport? Can you imagine how thrilled my clerks are? Getting all those door-to-doors into the system?’ He shook his head. ‘If it wasn’t happening, I’d never believe it. Someone upstairs must be shitting bricks. Three hundred blokes. Jesus …’ He pushed his chair back from the desk, reaching for an ashtray on the windowsill, and for a moment Kingdom thought of Clare Baxter, waking up to find the street full of white Ford Transits, and men from the BBC with anoraks and fancy clipboards. Sharing a little of Max Carpenter’s life had, in the end, carried a certain price.

  Kingdom leaned forward, refusing a cigarette. ‘I was looking at the timings,’ he said, ‘that chronology your lads put together. If I’ve got it right, our friend never had time to get off the island, not by road.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And you’ve kept the road block on? Ever since?’

  ‘Yeah. Twenty-four hours a day. Priority from HQ. The Guv’nor insisted.’

  Kingdom nodded, unsurprised. The Chief Constable would have got the word about Sabbathman as early as Monday, presumably from the Commissioner at the Yard. Given the likely headlines, maintaining a checkpoint on the island’s only bridge would pre-empt the obvious criticisms. Nothing made the guys upstairs dive for cover quicker than the threat of publicity.

  ‘So matey’s either still there,’ Kingdom mused, ‘or he’s come out some other way. By sea? Boat of some kind?’

  ‘Could be.’ Sperring nodded. ‘We’re still checking, but yes.’

  ‘Marinas? Jetties? Moorings?’

  ‘One marina on Hayling. Up in the north-east.’ Sperring frowned. ‘Then there’s a new one over the water, on the Portsmouth side. Plus moorings on the harbour, as you say.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I told you. We’re still checking.’

  ‘But supposing there’s nothing? No trace? What then?’

  ‘Then we carry on with the door-to-doors.’

  ‘The whole island?’

  ‘Of course.’ Sperring yawned. ‘What else do I do with three hundred blokes?’

  Kingdom found an empty corner in the Incident Room. Handwritten reports were already piling up from the newly extended search area and there were operators at all the computer terminals, their fingers blurring over the input keys. Kingdom reached for the telephone and dialled his father’s number. The voice, when it answered, was unfamiliar, a deep, rich baritone.

  ‘Angeline?’ Kingdom queried.

  ‘Barry. Angeline’s not here.’

  ‘Ah … so where’s Angeline? The nurse I hired? My name’s Alan Kingdom. Ernie’s son.’

  ‘She’s sick, sir. I’m Angeline. For the time being.’ Barry laughed. ‘You want to talk to your father, sir? I’ll get him.’

  ‘No. Wait. How is he?’

  ‘Fine. OK. Nice man.’

  ‘Is he eating? Does he talk to you?’

  ‘All the time. Talk, talk, talk. Lovely man. Hey, you wait a moment–’

  ‘What?’

  Kingdom stared at the phone, hearing a door slam at the other end. Last time he’d spent an evening with his father, nothing could make him talk. Now, it seemed, he couldn’t stop. Barry came back on the phone. In the background, he could hear his father singing. He hadn’t done that, either. Not for years.

  ‘Barry?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Can I talk to my father?’

  There were more noises, then Kingdom recognised his father’s voice. He sounded a little out of breath, but undeniably cheerful.

  ‘Dad?’ Kingdom said blankly.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Alan.’ Kingdom paused. ‘Alan?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Me, Dad. Your son. Alan.’

  ‘Ah … yes. Alan. He’ll be back soon, I expect. Sunday.’

  ‘What?’

  The phone changed hands again, Barry back in charge. Kingdom turned towards the window, embarrassed, trying to protect the conversation from listening ears. Barry said something about the people at the agency. They needed a deposit. He said it was urgent.

  ‘How much?’ Kingdom asked.

  ‘A week, sir. A week’s attendance. It’s standard terms. Part of the contract.’

  ‘How much is that, then?’

  ‘Ah …’ Barry paused, but Kingdom could tell he’d already worked it out. ‘Say £400, sir. Maybe more.’

  ‘Four hundred quid?’ Kingdom stared hard at the window.

  ‘Yes, sir. Seven hours a day. Plus travelling.’

  ‘Seven hours?’

  ‘Yes, sir. That’s the way we’ve worked it out.’

  ‘Who’s we?’

  ‘Me and your dad, sir. Mr Ernie.’

  Kingdom paused a moment, wondering whether to press the nurse any harder on the phone or leave it until later. Seven hours a day sounded like a lot of meals. Maybe Ernie was making up for lost time. Or maybe they were simply getting ripped off.

  Kingdom bent to the phone again, remembering Steve’s promise to send a replacement cheque.

  ‘Barry?’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Is there any mail for me? Envelope with a Woodford postmark? Or maybe Romford?’

  Kingdom heard Barry on the move. At length he found the letter.

  ‘OK,’ Kingdom said, ‘tell the agency they’ll be getting a cheque, and tell Dad to behave himself. I’ll be back tonight. See you later.’

  Kingdom hung up, staring at the phone for a second or two, trying to get his thoughts in order. At this rate, Steve’s money would last even less than a month. After that, Barry would have to go. So how long would it take the Social Services to come up with an alternative? And what was he supposed to do if they didn’t?’

  Kingdom shook his head, knowing there was no simple answer to any of the questions. Two desks away, one of the WPCs had pushed her chair back and was putting on her jacket. Kingdom went across and introduced himself. When he asked to borrow the terminal, she agreed at once. She was due for a coffee. She’d be back in ten minutes.

  Kingdom thanked her and settled down behind the terminal. Before he switched the machine on, he caught sight of his own reflection in the screen, the narrow, bony outline that framed his new face. He moved slightly, a little profile, left and right. In the depthless grey of the monitor screen he looked OK, different, but OK. Maybe he could live with it. Maybe it wasn’t quite as bad as he’d thought. He shrugged, mildly embarrassed by his own vanity, then reached for the power switch. The screen came to life and he keyed in the standard code to access the menu. The menu scrolled up from the bottom of the screen and Kingdom studied it a moment before entering another access code of his own, a seven-digit number and a password to get into the big Special Branch computer at New Scotland Yard. The computer was heavily shielded from electronic prowlers and sometimes it could take literally hours to negotiate entry. Today, though, Kingdom was lucky. The screen cleared and he recognised the distinctive Special Branch directory. Towards the bottom, it offered an update on the latest surveillance data filed by MI5’s ‘A’ Branch, the Gower Street specialists who kept physical track of selected targets.

  Kingdom began to scroll through the entries for the past twenty-four hours. In the main, they were routine surveillance reports on specific Provisional terrorists, known players with a place on what Northern Command still called ‘The England Team’. Each contact was coded with a number. The numbers were changed every week but Allder kept an up-to-date list and Kingdom consulted it now, matching each of the names on Allder’s list to numbers that tallied on the screen.

  Amongst the trace reports were seven specific targets, all filed under t
he same batch code. The batch code indicated that the targets all formed part of the same inquiry, and Kingdom studied their names with interest. He knew them all. He’d spent two busy years in Belfast amongst the small print of their private lives, a paper chase through endless RUC files, supplemented with stills and video surveillance. He’d never met any of these men or women in the flesh but they were like old friends. He knew about their families, who they lived with, whether or not they’d had kids. He knew what they liked to wear, the kind of meals they went for when they ate out, whether or not they were drinkers. He knew how they behaved under arrest, whether they’d ever shown signs of buckling under the heavier sessions at the RUC interrogation centre. And he knew, too, that none of them carried the suffix (X), indicating a possibility that they might be turned. No. These guys were the real thing, the hard cases, the biz. They belonged to the top cadre of sharp-end operators.

  Kingdom frowned, easing back from the screen a moment, recognising the logic behind this sudden outburst of surveillance activity. Given three high profile killings, it obviously made sense to check out the Premier League Provos, the men and women who – conceivably – might have lent a hand. In every case, as far as he could see, they were in the clear but that, too, was significant. It meant, as Kingdom was already beginning to suspect, that Sabbathman had nothing to do with the Republicans. It meant that the contents of this huge computer were largely irrelevant. It meant that they had to start all over again.

  Kingdom called up the next page of the file, the one reserved for trace requests logged in the last hour. Here, there was just one entry: 56734. He cross-checked the number against Allder’s list, finding a name he didn’t recognise. Sean McTiernan. Kingdom gazed at the name, searching back through his memory. He’d heard of a McTiernan early on, in the first months at RUC headquarters, but he was sure the first name had been Michael. He reached for a pad and scribbled down the number. Then he glanced at his watch: 10.42. He hesitated a moment before picking up the phone. Allder’s secretary answered on the first ring. The Commander was about to leave. There was a car outside. Couldn’t it wait?

  ‘No,’ Kingdom said.

  The secretary grunted, and then Allder came on. Kingdom read him the number.