Reaper

by Hurley, Graham

  “Fucking doctors,” he grunted. “Don’t know fuck all.”

  Buddy warmed to his theme, loosened by the Scotch, heartened by this glorious old villain who’d never listened for a moment to anyone in authority. Harry had always done things his way. He’d invented new machines, perfected new techniques, allegedly made a small fortune from a handful of registered patents. Some blokes said he was brilliant. Others said he was a lunatic. Either way, you had to love him, the sight of the man, the hair, the steam rising from the ancient flannels, soaked by the rain.

  Buddy came to the point of his story. Pascale. The offer of an operation three thousand miles away. Harry looked over at him. Age was tightening the flesh around his head and neck. He looked almost gaunt in the light from the gas fire. He took a pull of the whisky, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “What do you think?” he said. “Trust the bugger?”

  “I dunno.” Buddy paused. “What do you think?”

  “Me?” Harry looked at him again. “How would I fucking know?”

  Buddy shrugged. The question had come out wrong. It sounded indecisive, faintly pathetic. He hadn’t come for advice. He’d come for money.

  “I want to do it,” he said. “We need to do it. She’ll go barmy otherwise.”

  “Will she?”

  The old man raised an eyebrow. Around his mouth was shiny with butter from the crumpet. Buddy nodded.

  “Yeah,” he said. “She will.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. As sure as I can be.” He paused. “Wouldn’t you?”

  Harry turned his head and lifted his legs away from the fire. First one. Then the other. Bonk. Bonk.

  “Yeah, I expect I would,” he said at last.

  There was a long silence. The gas fire popped and roared. Buddy could hear the wind outside.

  “Harry …” he began, “I need money.”

  The old man grunted. “How much?”

  “Fifty grand.”

  “That’s a lot.”

  “I know. You’d get it back. In time.”

  “Yeah?”

  He looked up. Buddy nodded, leaning forward.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  There was another silence. Harry farted quietly, moving his body in the chair. There was colour back in his cheeks. He looked thoughtful.

  “I haven’t got fifty grand,” he said. “I haven’t got twenty grand. Or ten. Or five. In fact I haven’t got fuck all.”

  Buddy nodded slowly. Looking round the room, he could believe it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t know that.”

  Harry grunted again. “Doesn’t matter,” he said, “money’s no answer anyway.” He smiled at the thought, then glanced at his watch and drained his glass. “Six o’clock,” he said. “Time for a quick one.”

  They went to a pub a couple of miles away, back in Shoreham, round the corner from Harry’s business. Harry drove a big old Rover, automatic gearbox, specially adapted brakes. In the pub they drank pints of Guinness with Jameson’s chasers and the landlord kept a slate behind the bar.

  Harry talked about his business, the recession, the collapse of a major contract after a client went bust. His exposure was huge, and he’d been left owing tens of thousands to suppliers of his own, with his last two stage payments unmet. He’d paid off most of his debts, but his business was close to collapse. He’d sold his house to preserve his good name, and with luck he might survive until the summer. In July, he was on the promise of a big offshore contract in the Bristol Channel. If he got it, if the client came through, his problems might be over. But these were difficult times, and it was a fool who relied on anyone. In the meantime, he lived from day to day, swim to swim. The business was down to a permanent staff of three, and he took whatever tiny jobs turned up.

  He looked at Buddy, picking at a plate of sausage rolls that had appeared from nowhere.

  “Doesn’t help you at all, does it,” he said, grinning, “all my problems?”

  They got very drunk. They told stories about the old days, runs ashore in the Navy, blokes they’d known, strokes they’d pulled. They relived the first wild seasons on the North Sea rigs. Americans off the plane from Texas, holding court in the big Aberdeen hotels, open cheque books at their elbow. Harry chuckled, remembering his first big job, the break-through, inventing a new strain container for the huge concrete caissons, kidding the Yanks along, telling Buddy the story he’d heard a million times before, drawing the old, old diagrams on the bar top, a fingertip moistened with a dip of Guinness. They’d been good days, great days, brilliant money, real laughs, and at half past ten Buddy settled the slate, and ordered a taxi, holding the door open for Harry, helping him across the wet cobbles. Harry stood by the waiting cab, swaying slightly, the rain flattening his hair.

  “Love and war,” he said cheerfully, “real bastards.”

  Buddy thought nothing of the comment, folding Harry into the taxi. Back at the house, he stirred instant coffee into mugs of hot water and carried them through to the living room. Harry was back in his chair by the fire. His legs were propped on a pile of magazines and his eyes were closed. Buddy put the coffee beside his chair, making no sound. He moved across the room, thinking he’d find the spare bed Harry had promised him for the night. He had the door half open when he heard the old man’s voice.

  “Buddy …” he said, “I’ve got no fucking money but one day you’ll need gear. I know you will. I’ve got the gear. Piles of it. You can take what you want. It’s all in the yard. It’s yours …”

  Buddy looked at him, wondering what on earth the old man meant. The evening had been wonderful. He’d forgotten he’d come for help. “What do you mean?” he said. “Gear?”

  Harry opened one eye. He was smiling. “You name it,” he said. “It’s yours.”

  When Miller suggested they take a walk on the golf course, Charlie knew it was serious. Miller hated golf, and didn’t much like walking. Crisis time.

  The two men drove out of the big grey barracks at Castlereagh. They’d spent the morning at yet another interagency conference, Miller scribbling laconic notes to himself on the pad he always carried, while the three-man team from the RUC got more righteous than usual about yet another security débâcle.

  UK Special Branch had been running a series of surveillance operations across the Irish Sea, Stranraer to Larne. The operations had been innocuous enough, low grade stuff, but someone had forgotten to tell the locals. The result had been a run-in on the dockside at Larne. An over-zealous RUC man, plain clothes, had pulled a gun on one of his Special Branch cousins from over the water. The Special Branch man, a thick-skinned Scouser with fifteen years’ service, had told him to piss off. It wasn’t very friendly, but it hardly warranted a knee in the groin. The Scouser had retaliated, and they’d had to go through the usual charade – caution, arrest, interrogation – before the Scouser was allowed a phone call and the penny had dropped.

  At the conference, the incident had been recounted in exhaustive detail, yet more evidence that Whitehall’s declared policy of police primacy – RUC up front – wasn’t working the way it might. The security agencies had to get their act together before something really nasty happened, and the locals – the RUC man repeated – should be calling the tune. It was, after all, their bloody country. Miller had nodded, smiling his non-committal smile, wondering what he’d make of the Dublin fuck-up, if he only knew.

  Now, Miller parked the car beside the Fortwilliam Golf Club. He and Charlie got out of the car and began to walk. The course was virtually empty, midweek, a fine rain drifting in from the west. Miller put up a borrowed umbrella, pulling in Charlie beside him. They were still abreast of the first tee when he got to the point.

  “You’ll have seen your source,” he said.

  Charlie nodded. Despite the umbrella, there was rain on his face. It ran down his forehead and began to form a drip on the end of his nose. He could feel it there, hanging. “Yes,” he said.
/>
  “And?”

  Charlie shook his head. The drip flew into nowhere. “That’s all there was,” he said. “Just the address.”

  “Where did the address come from?”

  “Character named Dermot McGee. Fit little bugger. Works out a lot. Moustache. He took his wife and kids over the border. He’s been living in the south for a bit. Never gaoled. Never injured. Works with Scullen. Good operator.”

  “Have you seen the file?”

  “Yes.”

  “What else does it say?”

  “Not much. He’s been pulled in a couple of times but they never got anything out of him.”

  “How hard did they try?”

  “Oh …” Charlie glanced sideways at Miller, “hard enough.”

  Miller nodded, absorbing the information. He rarely enquired about sources, trusting his men. Unless circumstances were especially dire, sources were sacrosanct. He plunged on down the first fairway, Charlie in step beside him.

  “McGee contacted your source in the first place?” he said.

  Charlie nodded. “Yes.”

  “Wanting to know about Leeson? Our diplomat friend?”

  “Yes.” Charlie frowned. “They wanted to find out more about him. A local had passed the word through. Scullen thought he sounded promising.”

  “And your source knew Leeson?”

  “Knew of him,” he nodded, “yes.”

  “How?”

  Charlie didn’t answer for a moment, looking out across the sodden greens. Miller stepped in front of him. They’d both stopped walking.

  “Tell me, son,” Miller said. “Tell me how your source got to know.”

  Charlie glanced at him. Then he shrugged. “Her boyfriend knows him,” he said, “English fella. Name of Connolly.”

  Miller frowned. “But Connolly’s not the source?” he said.

  Charlie smiled. “No,” he said. “She is.”

  Connolly found Mairead in the launderette up in Andersonstown. She was sitting by the window reading a copy of the TV Times. Bronagh was with her, sitting at her feet with a one-armed doll, gazing at the swirl of dirty clothes going round and round in the washing machine.

  Connolly closed the door and stood beside her, looking down. She was half-way through an article on Tommy Cooper.

  “Hi,” he said, “it’s me.”

  Mairead looked up with a start. She’d had her hair cut since he’d seen her last. It was cropped short, and took some of the softness from her face. It made her look slightly aggressive. She smiled at him, folding the magazine.

  “Hi, yourself,” she said, “we’ve been waiting.”

  Connolly helped her carry the laundry home, the two big dustbin liners, the rain beginning to fall again. Mairead always dried the clothes at home, shaking out the wrinkles, pegging them up on the line in the garden. She always said they came out better that way, smelling of God’s fresh air, but Connolly knew different. The drying machine cost an extra seventy pence. And seventy pence, on a bad day, could buy the evening meal.

  They pushed in through the front door, Connolly manhandling the big plastic bags down the narrow hall, up the stairs, and into the bathroom. He’d done it before. He began to unpack, emptying the wet clothes into the bath, hearing Mairead in the kitchen below. He heard the pop of the gas as she put the kettle on for tea, and then a squeal from Bronagh, and a clap of the hands, and footsteps back down the hall. The front door opened again, and then closed behind them, and he heard their voices receding down the street, Bronagh excited, Mairead – as ever – telling her to calm down.

  Connolly glanced at his watch. It was barely midday. He wondered where they were off to, the kettle on the stove, himself in charge of the weekly wash. He shrugged, unfolding the clothes horse, balancing it on the top of the bath, arranging the clothes and opening the window to let the chilly air get at them.

  Mairead was back within minutes. The kettle had started to whistle in the kitchen, and she turned off the gas, and poured the hot water into the big china teapot she’d inherited from one of her aunts, and piled cups on a tray, and mounted the stairs. Connolly met her at the bathroom door.

  Mairead smiled at him, kissed him lightly on the lips, and took the tea-tray into the bedroom. Connolly watched her, his list of carefully prepared questions beginning to dissolve. He followed her into the bedroom. The bedroom was freezing. Mairead was turning down the bed. The tea tray was on the window sill, the steam clouding on the cold glass. Mairead finished with the bed and looked at him, his expression, the slightly frantic look of a man who can’t believe his eyes. She began to laugh.

  Connolly stepped forward. Mairead nodded at his anorak.

  “You’ll be taking that off?” she said.

  Connolly peeled off the coat and hung it on the nail on the back of the door. When he looked round Mairead was putting the tea-tray on the carpet beside the bed. Then she pulled the curtains, and stepped round the bed towards him. Close up, Connolly smelled perfume, something nice. It was his turn to laugh.

  “Christmas is over,” he said.

  “I know. But I thought you deserved it.”

  “It?”

  “Me.”

  “Why?”

  She smiled at him again, her finger on her lips, and he wondered what had happened since he’d been away. She had a girlishness about her that he hadn’t seen for months. The reserve and the caution had quite gone. She began to unbutton his shirt. Her fingers were warm on his chest. Connolly looked down at her.

  “Why?” he said again.

  She shook her head, easing his shirt away from his shoulders, folding it carefully, putting it to one side. “Come to bed,” she said, “it’s all over. Make love to me. Tell me what you really think.”

  She kissed him again, softly, on the belly, then stepped away and pulled her T-shirt over her head. She took off her bra and began to unzip her jeans. Connolly watched her.

  “What’s all over?” he said.

  Mairead grinned. “All that nonsense,” she said. “Going to see your friend. Whatever they wanted. It’s finished. Gone. The wee boys are happy. Whatever you got up to in Dublin – ” she shrugged – “it’s done the trick.”

  Connolly nodded, saying nothing. Mairead was naked now, except for her knickers, standing on the square of worn carpet, her flesh beginning to pimple in the cold. She had a beautiful body, long and lean, big breasts, flat belly. She looked at him a moment longer, then the smile began to fade.

  “What’s the matter?” she said. “Can’t a good Catholic girl say thank you?”

  Connolly shook his head, caught in the trap of his own making. He opened his mouth, looking for a place to begin, not finding one. Mairead sat down on the bed. She was beginning to shiver.

  “What is it?” she said again. “Don’t you want me?”

  “No. Yes.” Connolly shook his head. “It’s not that. It’s not you.”

  “What is it then?”

  “I …” he stopped, and abruptly he began to cry, confused now, and frightened, and worn out. The last few days, he’d thought about the very end of the road, where he’d find it, what it would feel like, and he realized now that it was here, in Mairead’s bedroom, another of life’s little surprises.

  He blinked at her through the tears, nowhere to hide. She was on her feet again. She put her arms around him. She took him to the bed. She undressed him. She folded the sheets over him, and pulled up the blankets, and slid in beside him, cradling his head in the crook of her arm. She asked no questions. She dried his tears. And then she seduced him, very slowly, with an expertise he’d never before associated with her, this mother of three, centre of his life, always busy, always on her feet. She danced her fingers down his belly, and teased and kneaded and ducked her head, pushing him gently back on the sheets when he tried to respond, to reciprocate. The pressure inside him grew and grew, and she knew it, her breasts cupping him, her fingers working underneath, her eyes looking up at him, along the length of his body, bigger
than he could ever remember. Moments before he climaxed, she began to straddle him, but he shook his head, groaning under her, and she nodded, not understanding, not knowing why, but happy to settle again, easing her breasts backwards and forwards, pleasing him, saying a personal thank you, making it all good for him.

  Afterwards he reached for her hand, and held it tightly, his eyes still half closed, the blood still pumping in his head.

  “No?” she said.

  He shook his head, explaining nothing, remembering only the woman on the phone from the clinic, the obvious advice, keep yourself to yourself for a while, just in case. He looked at Mairead. “No,” he said.

  They lay together for perhaps half an hour. The tea went cold on the tray below. Quite empty, quite at peace, Connolly looked at her.

  “I love you,” he said. “Whatever that means.”

  Mairead nodded. “Whatever that means,” she agreed.

  “I mean it.”

  “Yes,” she smiled, “I think you do.”

  Connolly went quiet for a moment. For most of the last twelve months, he’d been imagining this very scene, this very bed. Mairead. Beside him. Beneath him. All over him. When it had finally happened, the very last thing he’d expected, it had exceeded his wildest expectations. Now, he was quite lost in a feeling of semi-narcosis, a lovely feeling. Nothing could touch him now. Nothing could hurt. He’d been there. And she’d been there with him. And it had mattered for both of them.

  “Leeson’s dead,” he said blankly. “Someone killed him.”

  He felt Mairead stiffen beside him. He reached for her hand again. Squeezed it. He might have been describing an event in the newspapers. The words had no meaning.

  “They tried to arrest me,” he said. “They tried to make me think I did it.”

  “Who?”

  “Special Branch.”

  “Who are they?”

  He looked at her. “God knows,” he said.

  Mairead began to shiver, and Connolly pulled the blankets tighter around them, knowing now why Mairead had taken him to bed, why she’d made the space for them both. The pressures were off her. Danny’s friends had come and gone. She thought it was over. But she was wrong, and now she knew it, lying beside him, her eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling. He bent to her ear.