The Hostage s-1

by Duncan Falconer

  ‘You’d respect her less?’

  ‘I could only truthfully know that the next day of course, after I’d weighed everything in my mind, but probably.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’d always be wondering if she might jump into bed just as quickly with someone else.’

  ‘What if she did it because you meant nothing to her?’

  This was all wrong, Bill thought.They were talking about sex all right, but not in the way he’d anticipated. ‘I’d feel used,’ he said, trying to inject some fun into it.

  ‘And how do you feel about me?’ Aggy asked casually, without humour.

  ‘So far, I’d spend the rest of my life with you,’ he said without his usual smile.

  ‘So I shouldn’t even think about sleeping with you, unless I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life with you?’

  ‘No, you shouldn’t,’ he said. ‘Would you sleep with me if I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life with you?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘Then we’re settled,’ he said, grinning, wondering if they had arrived back on firm ground.

  She sipped her water.

  ‘I can’t believe none of them have hit on you - the guys in the detachment,’ he said.

  She shrugged as she picked up the menu and perused it. ‘There’s not one that you fancy then? Not even a little?’ he asked, almost desperate to know if she was heterosexual. He might even welcome news that she had slept with one of the men at this point.

  She glanced at him over the menu, wondering whether to tell him her more private thoughts or not.

  ‘Not that I’m worried about competition,’ he added. ‘I wouldn’t do anything such as get him transferred to another detachment, he said lying through his teeth.’

  She smiled ever so slightly. ‘There was one,’ she finally admitted. ‘But he’s already left.’

  ‘That’s a pity,’ he said. It was a relief, not that the man had left, but that one had existed in her life.

  ‘He wouldn’t have been any competition anyway.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘It was a one-way street. I don’t think he fancied me.’

  ‘You didn’t go out with him then?’

  ‘No. I don’t think we ever said more than two words to each other that weren’t work related . . . Like I said.’

  ‘Maybe he was a fruit.’

  ‘I doubt you would have said that to his face.’

  ‘Tough guy was he?’

  ‘I don’t think Stratton had a sense of humour about that sort of thing. I’m not sure he had a sense of humour at all.’

  Something inside Bill rocked at the mention of the name. The unbreakable smile looked unsteady for a few seconds. He cleared his throat.

  ‘Do you keep in touch with him?’ he asked.

  ‘We weren’t in touch when we worked together. I’m not sure why I mentioned him,’ she said, although that was not true. She wanted to let Bill know she was not a lesbian.

  ‘Why do you think you fancied him?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Why do you fancy anyone?’ ‘You like that kind of man?’

  ‘What kind is that?’

  ‘He’s a bit of a heartless killer, by all accounts.’

  ‘I’m not sure how true those stories are and I don’t think he’s heartless.’

  ‘Everyone else does. The way I understand it is he likes killing people so much it’s not only part of his job it’s his extra-curricular activity too.’

  ‘People like to make up stories about guys like Stratton.’

  Bill was sticking the knife into Stratton for a number of reasons, jealousy only one of them. He wondered if it would affect her feelings for Stratton if she knew how true the stories were. But women were strange that way, he reminded himself. They loved rogues. Bill had made a lot of mileage out of that one himself.

  ‘Can we not talk shop any more?’ she said. ‘I have one more day off and I don’t even want to think about work . . . I almost didn’t meet you tonight because of that.’ ‘Then not another word about it,’ he said.

  The waiter arrived with the wine and after he poured them a glass each they ordered. Bill chatted away, doing most of the talking, which he did not mind. Besides, Aggy was a good listener and he was making her laugh. Which was something she’d done little of in the past year.

  ‘What do you do to amuse yourself in your downtime back at the det?’ he said, then quickly, ‘Oops, I said the “D” word.’

  ‘It’s okay. Let’s face it, it’s our life. It’s hard not to talk about it. How about best efforts?’ she said.

  ‘Best efforts . . . It is an unusual business we’re in,’ he said. ‘Hard to ignore we have such unusual occupations.’

  ‘I was walking down Oxford Street this morning, mostly window shopping, when I found myself doing anti-surveillance. ’

  ‘Not a bad idea looking as delicious as you do. How short is that skirt? I’ve been praying you’d go to the loo soon so I could get a look at it.’

  She stood up and put her hands on her hips, mimicking a model’s flare.

  ‘Turn around,’ he said.

  She pretended to be irritated by the attention but did as she was told and turned around one way, and then back the other.

  Bill looked at her perfect breasts, slender hips and tight, rounded bottom with X-ray eyes, ‘Jesus,’ he mumbled to himself. She sat back down and he continued staring. ‘You know, it would not be such a good idea if you dressed like that over you-know-where.You’d attract far too much attention. ’

  She sipped her wine. ‘The last thing you need in that job. That’s why I try and look like a boy. They want me to look feminine, but they’re wrong. I wouldn’t last a week.’

  He was enjoying her more and more, mainly because he never expected her to be as sharp as she was.

  ‘I read mostly,’ she said. ‘In my spare time. Books.’

  ‘Books,’ he said. Another nice surprise. ‘People don’t read enough books these days. I read all the time.’

  ‘What kind of books?’ she asked.

  ‘Non-fiction. History.’

  ‘Just non-fiction?’ she asked.

  ‘Pretty much. Unless it’s a fictional character set in a factual setting.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Lord of the Rings. Noddy.’

  ‘Idiot,’ she said, laughing. ‘You can’t stay serious for more than a few seconds at a time, can you?’

  ‘I am Irish, remember. But you should know that the Irish joke a lot to hide how serious they truly are.’

  ‘You don’t seem Irish.’

  ‘And how does an Irish person seem?’

  ‘I mean you’ve only got a faint accent.’

  ‘I spent most of my youth in England.’

  ‘Your accent’s nice. It has soft edges.’ She looked into his eyes, growing warmer towards him.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, staring back at her.

  The waiter arrived and placed their meals in front of them.

  ‘That was good timing. My heart was tearing at me to lean over and kiss you.’

  ‘You’ll get gravy on your shirt.’

  ‘I might just walk across the bloody table if you look at me like that again.’

  She suddenly felt it was moving too fast and pulled back a few bends in the road.

  ‘Is it difficult for you . . . fighting your own people?’ she asked, then wondered why she did. It was a stupid question.

  ‘My own people?’

  ‘I didn’t mean it to come out quite like that. Forget I said it.’

  ‘I know what you mean. I think the Catholics have a valid argument.’

  ‘Do they?’

  ‘They weren’t always at war with the Brits, you know,’ he said. ‘Before the IRA there was the IRB: the B stood for Brotherhood. They were non-militants and had quite a few admirable characters among them.’

  ‘Like whom?’

  ‘There were loads of ’em.’

/>   ‘So tell me.’

  He smiled at her inquisitiveness. ‘Okay. Have you ever heard of Thomas Francis Meagher?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Right then. I’ll tell you a little about him. Now you’re sure you want me to bore you to death with a bit of Irish history?’

  ‘I like history.’

  ‘That’s all you had to say. Okay. Let me see. Thomas Meagher . . . He lived around the time of the great famine. Do you know when that was?’

  ‘Somewhere in the eighteen hundreds?’ she asked, guessing.

  ‘More than what most people know. And you know that was when the Irish wanted to become independent?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  ‘Kind of,’ he said rolling his eyes good-humouredly. ‘If you’re going to go to war against them you should at least have the decency to know what it’s about.’

  ‘That’s why I’m asking.’

  ‘Better late than never, I suppose . . . Well, the British didn’t want that and so they planned to weaken the country by exporting as much of the food as they could to England, leaving hardly anything for the people to eat but potatoes. You know about that?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  He took a mouthful of food and a swig of wine before continuing.‘Okay.Then a mysterious blight arrived in Ireland that wiped out the potato, pretty much the only food there was to eat, and over a million of the population died. There are some people in the Republic who still believe that blight was a bit of British biological warfare.’

  ‘No, I don’t believe it.’

  ‘I said some people believe it. There’s no evidence it’s true.’

  ‘I can’t believe we’d do that.’

  ‘Well, maybe not, but they did refuse to lift a finger to help the starving families and continued exporting as much food as they could out of the country. That’s when a secret society known as the Young Irelanders was formed and they led the great rising of 1848. Have you heard of that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well. Thomas Meagher was about your age at the time and he went around giving speeches stirring up anti-British sentiment. He was arrested along with several others for putting up barricades in Tipperary, the rising came to an end and Meagher and his pals were all tried and sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered.’

  ‘Just for putting up a barricade?’

  ‘Well, they’d done a few other things, but not much more than that. There was an informer in their ranks who told the British that they were up to all kinds of revolutionary things.’

  ‘A tout? Some things never change.’

  ‘Right,’ Bill said. ‘Well, there was an uproar and Queen Victoria stepped in—’

  ‘I’ve heard of her,’ she interrupted.

  ‘I’m impressed,’ he said. ‘Well, the old girl decided to change the nine men’s sentences to life in prison in a penal colony in Australia. Now, I said there were some great Irishmen in those days, didn’t I? Well listen to this. All nine of those men escaped within a few years and you won’t believe what they then went on to achieve.’ Bill leaned forward in a conspiratorial manner.‘One went on to become Prime Minister of Australia . . . ’

  ‘Prime Minister of the country he was sent to spend the rest of his life in prison?’ Aggy said.

  ‘Yes. Charles Duffy was his name.’

  ‘That’s amazing.’

  ‘I haven’t finished yet.Another became Governor General of Newfoundland. Another became Attorney General of Australia, another Minister of Agriculture and President of the Council for Canada, another a prominent New York politician, two served in the United States Army and both became Brigadier Generals, and Thomas Meagher became General of the 69th Irish Brigade, one of the most successful and feared units in the American Civil War on the Union side, and later he became Secretary of State and acting Governor of Montana.What do you think about that then?’

  ‘That’s amazing,’ she said again sincerely. ‘I mean, that’s unbelievable.’

  ‘There you go.And that’s just a handful of great Irishmen.’

  ‘Tell me some more.’

  ‘Get a book.’

  ‘No, go on. It’s interesting. How did Meagher escape?’

  ‘From Australia?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, he was a brash adventurer, and a very honourable man. He wrote a letter to his district magistrate and simply told him he intended to set himself free because he did not respect the law that imprisoned him. But he didn’t run off right away. He waited until the magistrate had received the letter and sent the police after him. As they arrived at his house to arrest him he galloped away, lost them, hopped on to a boat and sailed to New York City.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘I’m not going to spend the entire evening talking about the history of Ireland.’

  ‘Just Meagher. What happened to him next?’

  Bill sighed and looked at her with a mock frown. He was truthfully enjoying telling her the story. ‘Okay,’ he continued.

  ‘Wait a minute. Where are we? I mean what year?’

  ‘The 1860s. When the American Civil War started the Irish Americans had little interest in fighting at first. When Meagher arrived in America he continued his struggle for the freedom of Ireland and became a prominent leader within the IRB. That’s when Abraham Lincoln stepped in and made a deal with him and other members of the IRB to get the Irish to fight in the war. Meagher saw it as a way to raise an army to eventually fight the British. He agreed to fight on the Union side if Lincoln agreed that after the war his men could keep their arms. And basically, that’s what happened, and a great deal of credit for the winning of the American Civil War had to go to the Irish soldiers who fought in it.’

  ‘But how could the Irish attack the British from America?’ she asked.

  ‘They invaded Canada.’

  ‘No way,’ she said.

  ‘They did.After the civil war Meagher’s army was allowed to camp along the Canadian border. The idea being that if the Irish could invade Canada they could use it as a barter to win home rule in Ireland.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ she said with a chuckle. ‘The Irish actually invaded Canada?’

  ‘Don’t laugh too soon,’ he said.‘They invaded it and more than once.The most famous fight was the battle of Ridgeway, where they actually routed the British.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, to be honest, it wasn’t a British army as such. It was a garrison. And it wasn’t quite like any of the big battles of the Civil War, but people were killed and the British were routed. Unfortunately the Irish couldn’t hold on to the land and they were kicked out a few days later.’

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘Lincoln was assassinated and the new President, Johnson, turned against the Irish, or at least no longer helped the cause, and it all went downhill from then on.’

  ‘That’s astonishing.’

  ‘Do you want to hear something else some old Irish Americans believe?

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, they believe the British killed Abraham Lincoln.’

  ‘Now you’re totally bullshitting me.’

  ‘I didn’t say it was true, I just said there are those who believe it.What is true is that there was no love lost between the Brits and the Yanks in those days. They were always close to having another war with each other. Don’t forget the Brits were helping the Confederate army defeat the Union at the time. And they also knew Lincoln was helping the Irish and had made a deal with them that would help start a war in Ireland. And Lincoln also had his eye on Canada and wanted to link Alaska with the rest of North America.’

  ‘My God.’

  ‘Exactly. There, now, is that a story or what?’

  ‘What happened to Meagher?’

  ‘Ahh, funny you should ask because that’s another interesting part of the story. Before the last invasion of Canada, which was nixed by another bloody British spy - the guy who actually planned the invasion for the Irish, would you beli
eve - Meagher, was, as I’ve said, made Secretary of State for Montana and became acting Governor. Not long after he mysteriously disappeared off a paddle steamer one night. His body was never found.’

  ‘But there are those who believe it was the work of the dastardly British,’ she said, mimicking him.

  ‘Are you making fun of this?’

  ‘I’m not, really. I think it’s great, well, you know what I mean.’

  ‘Actually that just so happens to be true.’

  ‘There’s evidence?’

  ‘No. But there are those who believe it.’

  ‘Why would the British want to kill him?’

  ‘Maybe they were settling old scores. Or perhaps it was because Montana is on the border of Canada and Meagher was planning another invasion. No one will ever know. And that’s it. No more stories about Ireland, not tonight anyway.’

  ‘Did he have any children?’ she asked.

  ‘Why do you ask that?’

  ‘Just wondered. We don’t have any Meaghers on our players list.’

  ‘Maybe there are one or two running about under different names,’ he said, aware that was not the smartest thing to say, even in jest, but it was harmless enough with Aggy.

  ‘It does make you think though, doesn’t it? Maybe we are wrong,’ she said.

  ‘That it does.’

  ‘And then they put a bomb in a pub or blow up a street full of innocent people just for the publicity and you realise they’re not right either.’

  ‘As far as they’re concerned it’s a war. In war civilians suffer along with the armies.’

  ‘Do you think Meagher would’ve done something like that?’

  ‘Of course not. But who knows what he would’ve done if he’d been born today.’

  ‘I don’t see any honour in it,’ she said.

  Bill kept quiet.

  ‘What do you think you’d have done if you’d been born Catholic? Would you have joined the IRA?’

  ‘No,’ he said, avoiding her look.

  ‘You joined the British army.’

  ‘And I’ll be happy when I’m out of it.’

  ‘You’re leaving?’

  ‘That’s the plan.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly. Soon I think.’

  ‘Why?’ she said as she took a mouthful of food.