Reaper

by Hurley, Graham

  Now, downstairs, he washed his face in the sink, cold water from the tap, a pebble of soap from the dish on the draining board. He rinsed his face a couple of times, and dried it on a dishcloth. There was a big corkboard hanging on the kitchen wall. It was covered in bits and pieces, old photos, recipes, kids’ drawings. A family home, he thought. A place to bring the kids in the holidays.

  He wandered upstairs again, glad of the silence and the sunshine puddling the wooden floors. Beside the bed was a plastic bag. Inside the bag was the black balaclava, and the gun, and the box of shells. He took the balaclava out, shaking it into shape, spreading it on the fingers of one hand, like a puppet. He sniffed it. It smelled of cheap tobacco. With the gun, crossing the border, heading down towards Dundalk, it was his sole worldly possession, all he had left. The rest of it – his books, his clothes, years of academic work, even his identity – had all gone, left behind in that other life he’d led, the forfeit he’d paid for three seconds’ madness in a busy street in Belfast.

  He looked at the balaclava again. Then he went downstairs with it, up to the far end of the big room. Here, there was a fireplace, an open hearth, a working chimney. He found some matches, and a little kindling, and an old newspaper. He arranged a bed of crumpled newsprint on the hearth, and built a tiny cairn from the kindling, and lit it. Then he laid the balaclava on the flames, watching it begin to smoke and burn, the eyeholes going first, and then the mouth, the wool unravelling in the heat, the folds of black moving slightly. It looked like a head, half human, and he knew it, turning away, the sour taste of vomit in his throat, thinking of the man Charlie.

  An hour later, lunchtime, dressed, he heard a car. Sitting outside in the sunshine, his back against the wall of the cottage, he was thinking of Mairead. He knew, in his heart, that she must have seen him doing it, killing the man. He wondered what she made of it, what she thought. He wondered whether she knew why he’d really done it, for her, for her Irishness, her legacy, making his own modest statement, his own small contribution to the cause. To begin with, now, she’d be horrified. Later, when they met again, she might understand.

  He squinted into the sunshine, watching the car bump into sight, an old grey Mercedes, a big car, two men inside. The car stopped outside the cottage. One of the two men got out. He recognized Scullen’s walk, the slight stoop, as he pushed in through the gate. Connolly didn’t get up. Scullen’s shadow lay over him. He looked up.

  “Where am I?” he said.

  Scullen thought about the question, recognizing it for what it was, not strictly a matter of geography. Then he peered round, as if he’d never been here in his life.

  “Kerry,” he said briefly, “heart of the universe.”

  “Whose universe?’

  “Mine.”

  Scullen looked down at him, the teacher with a disappointing pupil. Neither of them had mentioned the shooting, and Connolly knew instinctively that neither of them would. Scullen began to frown.

  “You’re a historian,” he said, “you’ve heard of the great man.”

  Connolly looked away for a moment or two, consulting his mental check list of Irish folk heroes. One of them had Kerry connections. Came from down this way. Must have done. Scullen was watching him, the frown deepening. Then Connolly remembered.

  “The Liberator,” he said. “Daniel O’Connell.”

  Scullen nodded, pleased again, peering out towards the west where the mountains shouldered down towards the sea.

  “There,” he said.

  Connolly followed his pointing finger. Daniel O’Connell had been a nineteenth-century lawyer and politician. He’d fought for Catholic emancipation. He’d spoken for the people. He’d taken on the Brits and won. Connolly looked to the west.

  “Where?” he said.

  “Over there. In the next bay. That’s where the man lived. We’ll see it later. I’ll take you round.”

  Connolly got up and wiped the dust from his hands. “We’re not staying, then?” he said.

  Scullen looked at him. “No,” he said, beaming, “I’ve more work for you.”

  Buddy got the letter from Jude in the late morning post. He collected it as he was leaving. He recognized the Irish stamp, and he peered hard at the postmark. Cahersiveen, it said, County Kerry.

  Buddy read the letter once he got to the motorway, heading east again, towards Brighton. The letter was brief, two paragraphs, and had obviously been confected by whoever had typed it. The odd phrase he recognized as authentically Jude’s, but for the most part it read like the kind of statement policemen extract from interviewees, a flat, formal prose, no smile, no lift. The letter said that Jude was OK. It said that she missed him, and wanted to be back with him. It said she was looking forward to going to Boston, and that she was sure he’d be able to make it work for them both. At the end of the letter, also typed, it said: “All my love, and whatever else you need … Jude.” Instead of a signature, it carried the imprint of a pair of lips. The lipstick was the right colour, a deep red. Buddy lifted the paper to his nose and sniffed it. It smelled of Jude. He slipped the letter back into the envelope, keeping his eye on the road. He’d packed her make-up in the overnight bag, he remembered. They must have found it.

  An hour later, he turned onto Brighton seafront, and parked the Jaguar about a quarter of a mile from the Palace Pier. He’d phoned Harry before breakfast. The old man was on his way out of the house. Buddy had said he needed equipment – breathing gear, some specialist stuff – but Harry cut him short, telling him to put it all on a piece of paper and send it along. Better still, he said, come on down and do it in person. Harry was supervising a piling job on the end of the pier. One o’clock sounded a sensible time for lunch.

  Buddy checked his watch. 12.30. He locked the car, fed the meter, and strolled along the prom towards the pier. It was a glorious day, late March, the sky the cleanest blue, the faintest lop of the water between the two piers. Already, there were a handful of picnickers on the shingle, wicker baskets and plaid rugs and kids shredding bread rolls for the squadrons of wheeling gulls.

  Buddy walked the length of the pier. Painters were at work on the cast-iron balustrades. There was a smell of popcorn and warm timber, the scents of early summer. At the end of the pier, there were amusements, and a bar, and a small gate marked “Private. No Admittance”. Buddy pushed through it, clattering down a flight of steel steps towards the pier’s lower deck. From here, Harry’s men were diving, the long air-hoses snaking down another flight of steps to the sea. Buddy leaned over the rail and gazed down. The visibility was excellent for the time of year, a good ten feet, and he could see the shapes of the divers working around the base of the big supporting pillars, the tell-tale column of bubbles breaking surface beneath his feet. Buddy watched the men for a moment, enjoying the sun on his face, wondering whether he really missed it after all, even this kind of thing, kids’ stuff, then he dismissed the thought, and went looking for Harry.

  In the long, dark locker room the divers were using for Control, they told him that Harry was still down. The Diving Superintendent on the job, a big Geordie in a singlet and a pair of jeans, bent to the intercom on the operations panel and told Harry he had a visitor. Buddy listened for a moment, recognizing Harry’s voice, disembodied, slightly metallic.

  “Tell him to fucking wait,” the voice said. “He’s early.”

  Buddy waited outside, on the lower deck, leaning over the rail, warming his body in the sun. There were a couple of other divers there, already suited up, waiting to relieve the men in the water, and the three of them talked about the Falklands. Rumours were surfacing in the papers now, talk of sovereignty, and ultimatums, and possible moves against the Falkland Islands. There was nothing definite, nothing firm, but one of the men had a brother in the Navy, and he’d been recalled from leave at twelve hours’ notice. Buddy shot him a look.

  “Diver?” he said.

  The other man shook his head. “Submarines,” he said, “Conqueror.”

&nb
sp; Harry surfaced ten minutes later, wallowing beside the landing platform in a tangle of lines. One of the two divers went down to help him, and Buddy watched as he eased the old man’s helmet off, and unbuckled his harness and his air bottles and the thick belt of weights he wore around his waist. Suddenly diminished, a stocky, white-haired old man in a black rubber suit, he looked up at Buddy and waved. Then he began to crawl up the iron steps on his hands and knees, trailing seawater behind him.

  Buddy threw him a towel at the top. “Lunchtime,” he said briefly, “and I’m buying.”

  Harry mopped his face and dried the water from his ears. “Thank Christ for that,” he said.

  They had lunch in the bar at the end of the pier. They sat at a small table near the door. The sun had come round a bit, and there was no wind, and it was pleasantly warm. Buddy fetched and carried from the bar, steak and kidney pie for Harry, fish and chips for himself, and two pints of Guinness. They said nothing for a while, eating the food. Then Harry looked up.

  “You need some stuff,” he said, as if he’d suddenly remembered.

  Buddy nodded. “I do.”

  “What sort of stuff?”

  Buddy hesitated a moment. He’d spent a couple of days drawing up a comprehensive list, and he’d brought it with him now. It included a closed circuit breathing set, twenty kilos of RDX explosive, a set of special magnetic clamps, a pair of detonators, and an underwater transmitter adjusted to a special sonic frequency to trigger the blast. The list was detailed, with careful specifications, and to anyone with Harry’s experience it told its own tale. Yet he knew he ought to have a cover story, something at least half plausible for the moment when Harry asked the obvious question. He looked at the old man, then told him what he needed. Harry listened without comment. Then he raised an eyebrow.

  “How much explosive?”

  “Twenty kilos.”

  “That’s a lot.”

  “I know.”

  “Have you got a PE Certificate?”

  Buddy shook his head. A Police Explosives Certificate was the piece of paper you needed to handle explosives. On commercial jobs, it was always the responsibility of the diving contractors.

  “No,” Buddy said.

  “You can have mine.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Means I’ll have to come along, though.”

  Buddy looked at him. Then shook his head. “No,” he said.

  “Why not? Is it illegal?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.” Harry grinned. “Very illegal?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” Harry put his knife and fork down and wiped his mouth with the paper napkin. “Money in it?”

  “As much as I need.”

  Harry stared at him. “Fifty grand?” he said.

  Buddy nodded. “Yeah,” he said.

  Harry whistled, then reached for his glass. The conversation had begun to resemble a game show. Question and answer. Name the job. Harry took a long pull at the Guinness and frowned.

  “You’re blowing something up,” he said.

  Buddy nodded but said nothing. Harry looked at him. “A boat?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Big boat?”

  “Big enough.”

  “Here?”

  “Across the Channel.”

  “France?”

  “Yeah.”

  Harry nodded again, a gesture of applause, and bent to his meal while Buddy told him how he’d been hired to cripple a Liberian-registered tanker currently berthed in Le Havre. His contact on the job was a Turkish-Cypriot middleman working for an undisclosed client. The target company was Greek owned, with offices in Piraeus and Miami. The background to the piece was complicated and Buddy wouldn’t bother him with the small print. The job was worth $90,000 – half up front, and half on completion – and that, Buddy said, would do nicely. Harry nodded again, even more enthusiastic. He reached for the empty glass and limped to the bar. When he came back, he had more questions.

  “How will you get over there?” he said.

  “Charter,” Buddy said, “out of Warsash.”

  “Dry hire? Wet?”

  “Dry.” Buddy looked at him. “What do you think?”

  “Crew?”

  “All set.”

  Harry nodded, and pulled a face, and for a moment Buddy couldn’t fathom whether the disappointment was faked or not. The old man was sucking on one of his knuckles, where he’d acquired yet another wound. He looked up.

  “This tanker,” he said, “not going to spew fucking crude everywhere, is she?”

  Buddy shook his head, the one question he’d anticipated. “It’s empty,” he said, “been laid up for six months.”

  Harry nodded. “Good,” he said, “so when do you want the stuff?”

  “Soon as possible.”

  “Where?”

  “Warsash.”

  Harry thought about it for a moment, then reached for the Guinness.

  “OK,” he said, “it’s yours.”

  “How much?”

  The old man looked up again, genuine surprise. “Nothing,” he said, “I hate the fucking Greeks.”

  TWENTY

  The First Sea Lord spent Wednesday 31st March on official business in Portsmouth. He attended a Civic Reception in the Guildhall, and afterwards addressed a large gathering of senior officers about the implications of the latest round of defence cuts. By 4.30 he was aboard his helicopter, and lifting off for the twenty-minute flight back to London.

  Already, he knew that the Argentinian fleet was at sea. A tidal wave of intercepts over the last two days had supplied an accurate fix on the position of Argentinian warships. Their deployment – in a long crescent north-west of the Falklands – removed the last shreds of doubt. Naval Intelligence had now confirmed what Francis Leeson had been saying for the last six months: that the Argentinians were bent on an invasion of British sovereign territory. Barring miracles, the Falklands would – in a matter of days – become Las Malvinas.

  The First Sea Lord was back in Whitehall shortly after 6 p.m. On his desk, he found a thick sheaf of briefing material, with new Intelligence reports updating the noon assessments. He studied them quickly, then telephoned the Commander-in-Chief Fleet, at Naval Headquarters, at North-wood. They had a brief conversation about the state of contingency planning, then he put the phone down and set off to find the Minister of Defence.

  By now, the Minister of Defence was already in a council of war, hastily convened in the Prime Minister’s office in the Commons. The First Sea Lord left Whitehall and walked quickly across Parliament Square to the Houses of Parliament. Still in full dress uniform after the Portsmouth visit, he strode into the Central Lobby in search of his Minister. The policeman on duty brought him to a halt. For fifteen minutes, he waited in the office of a junior whip. Finally, near eight o’clock, he joined the council of war.

  The Prime Minister’s office was crowded. The First Sea Lord counted seven heads. He sat down. The Prime Minister asked him at once whether the Navy could mobilize a Task Force. He said they could. She nodded and asked how quickly it could be done. He hesitated long enough to feel the temperature of the room. There was confusion here, and some anger. The politicians were boxed in. The diplomatic bluff had finally been called, and now the Argentinians were making the running. Years of neglect had come to this: an enemy fleet at sea, an invasion likely within forty-eight hours. The Prime Minister asked the question again: how soon could the Navy sail a Task Force of its own? The First Sea Lord paused for a second. Then he looked at her.

  “A balanced force, Prime Minister?” he queried.

  She nodded. “Whatever’s necessary,” she said.

  He pursed his lips a moment, long enough to command complete silence. Then he looked up.

  “By the weekend,” he said.

  Ingle, still in Belfast, sat at his desk and studied the telex from Paddington Green. There were no ambiguities, no possibility of mistakes. RUC scenes of crimes men had recove
red seven bullets from the Great Victoria Street shooting. They’d run the usual tests and had circulated the results. One copy had gone overnight to Special Branch, Area Three, London. The Met’s forensic department had compared the RUC analysis to their own library of spent rounds. Of these, the critical evidence from hundreds and hundreds of other incidents, only one other shooting had emerged from the computer as a perfect match. Francis Gerard Lancelot Leeson. Killed by person or persons unknown. 24th January, 1982. In Chiswick.

  Ingle read the telex again, trying to think the whole thing through, trying to patch together enough of the picture to satisfy himself that the scalp in the out-tray wouldn’t be his own. It was now confirmed that the victim, Charlie McGrew, had been a serving soldier, working undercover for Nineteenth Intelligence. That, in itself, had been an occasion for discreet celebration in certain security circles, tired of Nineteenth’s special privileges, of the space they’d made for themselves, of the short cuts they took, of the aura of quiet invincibility they’d constructed to deflect all criticism. These were guys who thought they were superhuman, immune to mistakes or political control. Now the world at large knew different. Charlie McGrew had been nutted on a crowded street in broad daylight – lunchtime for Chrissakes – by a guy in a car who’d managed the cleanest of getaways. That wasn’t remotely superhuman. That was kids’ stuff. That was very careless indeed.

  Ingle bent to the telex. He’d already seen the RUC preliminaries, and he knew that Charlie McGrew must have been set up. He’d have been stopping for a rendezvous or a pick-up. He’d arranged to meet somebody, and that somebody had invited some other guests to the party. There’d been plenty of witnesses, and the usual flood of conflicting descriptions. Some people had said the gunman had been blond. Others said he had dark brown hair. One old woman even thought he looked like a girl. Age? Some said early twenties. Some said much older. Only on one detail was there any reasonable measure of agreement. At least half a dozen people had said the bloke looked half crazy. Drugs, or booze, or something. Out of his head. The eyes wider than you’d credit.