by Jan Needle
Masters’ eyes were bright.
‘I can stand anything,’ he said. His voice was intense, determined. ‘I can take the lot. But I’m damned if I’m prepared to. I’m damned.’
Hughes turned to Matthew Jerrold. He raised his eyebrows lightly, and his voice was dry as bone.
‘Bravo,’ he said.
*
Queen Anne’s Gate. Sinclair and Fortyne.
Donald Sinclair, in some eyes, got quite a bruising in his first formal meeting with the military. To his ears these people seemed to quack, not speak, and every suggestion he tried to make was brushed aside. He could not play his prime card – the death at Buckie – because the failure could so easily be laid on him. It had been his decision to deploy the hush-hush form of stun-device (a sort of super Taser), and one he had chosen not to clear with Sir Gerald Turner. Had it worked out as he’d expected, his heart and the military’s would have beat like one. But they had fucked it up, and he had had to swallow it.
After the meeting, over paté and cold Beck’s in Christian Fortyne’s office, Sinclair spat out his irritation. Judith Parker, the senior department secretary, was sitting on the edge of the desk, cool and severe as ever in a tailored suit, and she laughed at his reaction.
‘Do you know,’ she said. ‘I think you’ve got an inferiority complex, Donald. Why should they rattle you just because they went to Eton? Christian went to Eton and he’s all right, isn’t he? They’re cannon fodder.’
‘The reason they rattle me is because that’s just what they are not. They’re fireproof, untouchable, unshakeable. You give them orders, and they smile. They make a cock-up, and they smile. You point them at the enemy, and God knows what they do. Stab you in the back, maybe? If it suits them. Christian?’
Fortyne took the top off a second bottle. He poured, sipped, savoured.
‘There is a certain superiority,’ he said. ‘It comes, I think, from knowing that when a war breaks out you’ll always be a thousand miles away directing it. I don’t think it’s anything to do with Eton, though. That just makes them happier in the company of men.’ He took another sip. ‘Or grown-up boys, at least.’
Sinclair checked his watch.
‘Back to the grind in five minutes,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry about the outburst, Christian. I must be a trial to you sometimes.’
Fortyne shook his head.
‘You can never tell with the military,’ he said. ‘Who knows, you might have impressed them. But as a general rule, Donald, a bit more sang-froid. If you don’t mind my saying so?’
Judith slid lightly from the desk.
‘He’s exhausted, poor thing. I’ve put three more appointments off this afternoon. Why don’t you catch up on some report-reading?’
‘If you mean have a doze in the armchair,’ said Sinclair, ‘there’s no chance. Any calls I ought to deal with?’
‘Ah,’ she said. ‘Pendlebury rang. In fact, he’s rung three times. I think it’s one for Christian, though.’
Fortyne groaned.
‘Pendlebury?’ said Sinclair.
‘Governor of Bowscar,’ said Fortyne. ‘Where we put the Animal. He’s a bit of a liberal, I’m afraid. A bit of a pain.’
‘Now now,’ said Judith, lightly. ‘He wants to know why, and for how long, McGregor has to be kept in solitary, that’s all. He’s worried by the implications.’
Fortyne nodded.
‘I’ll sort him out,’ he said. ‘Maybe another move. The Scar’s ideal for McGregor, though. Nice and isolated. I’ll think about it.’
Sinclair did go home early that evening. He left much work undone and cut a cocktail party at the House which the PM was scheduled to attend. He dined alone with Mary after a long hot bath, and he split a bottle of wonderful claret with her, then drank vintage port. By the time they went upstairs Mary’s eyes had darkened visibly, and she returned from her dressing room languorously naked. Their love-making was relaxed, and comfortable, and afterwards they mulled over the day again. The memory of the meeting stirred Sinclair, though, and the excitement began to trickle back. He talked of the new contingency measures in terms of rings of steel, of flexible responses, of going in hard and strong. He sounded like a military man himself.
‘You sound as if you’re enjoying it,’ said Mary. There was something in her voice.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am. Is there anything wrong with that?’
The lamps were off, but the curtains were open. He could see her face, shadowed and highlighted, in the moonlight.
‘I suppose it’s part of a larger strategy,’ she said. ‘But it doesn’t sound exactly reformist yet, does it? Rings of steel…’
‘What are you suggesting? That I’m going to join the hang’em and flog’em brigade? Come on, darling? But if there was another riot. If there’s another Buckie...’
‘That man died, didn’t he?’ said Mary. ‘That young man on the roof. Elizabeth Turner told me. He was only twenty-three. That’s awful, Donald. That’s terrible.’
He lay beside her in the softly lighted room, staring at the ceiling. Somehow, it had not occurred to him to think of James McGregor in those terms. Twenty-three. A young man. Dead. He’d paid lip service to the horror, to Sir Gerald in particular, but it did not actually feel important. What of excitement? The sense of possibility? The sense of power? He leaned across the pillow and kissed Mary lightly on the cheek.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘But I have to try not to brood too much. That would be fatal. I’ve got to build.’
Mary didn’t reply. She had closed her eyes.
‘Goodnight,’ he said. ‘l Iove you.’
*
Princess Louise. Forbes and Jackson.
It was the funny looks that he’d been getting that finally shifted Andrew from the foyer of the theatre onto the Euston Road. He’d been there, on and off, for nearly two hours, and he felt a bloody fool. Alice Grogan wasn’t coming, and the trouble was he didn’t look like the sort of person to be seen staring at modern paintings and sculpture, not even for ten minutes. He was a misfit.
He’d gone to the Shaw after a long and fruitless morning with Peter Jackson, continuing the search for Lister. Both men had followed phone leads until they’d gone their separate ways, Forbes to Wormwood Scrubs to chat with a prison officer. They’d arranged to meet again in the Princess Louise in Holborn between five and seven in the evening, when Andrew planned to introduce the Customs man to the extraordinary Alice. That would shake him!
He cursed himself, as he walked down past the British Museum, for the sublime nebulousness of the arrangement he’d made with her. He’d let her leave his flat with a half-arsed farewell and a quarter-arsed belief that they had some kind of a date. He hunched his shoulders into his coat, smiling in self-mockery. He was getting old, and daft, and stupid. Why should lovely Alice bother with the likes of him?
The pub was crowded, but Jackson was watching out for him from a table.
‘Health,’ he said, sliding him a pint that he’d been guarding. ‘What do you want first, the good news or the bad news?’
‘The good,’ said Andrew. ‘I need something to cheer me up.’
‘Lister’s in Bowscar Jail,’ said Jackson, grinning. ‘They took him there this morning, from St Albans nick. He never even realised it, apparently. He thought he was going to another lock-up. All part of the plan.’
‘Fuck,’ said Forbes. ‘Miraculous. But was it a scam? What went wrong?’
‘I don’t know all the details yet. Who gives a shit? We’ve got him, Andy-boy. Bowscar’s a bastard. Bowscar is tight. We’ve got the bastard nailed.’
Forbes emptied half his glass in three mouthfuls. He reached for Jackson’s empty.
‘Again?’ They always drank Ruddles in the Princess Louise. He did not need to ask. ‘Oh – and what’s the bad news, by the way?’
‘Lister’s lady,’ said Peter Jackson. ‘Alice. They found her body in a flat this morning. Nosy neighbour job. Single stab wound to the heart. D
ead as mutton.’
Andrew took the glasses to the bar. He ordered the bitter, and put his mind carefully into neutral. He saw a face in the mirror behind the Australian giantess pulling the pints. It was his own. He looked old, and tired, and fed up.
He was.
EIGHT
Fat Man and Paddy Collins.
Paddy Collins and the fat man were in the Lada when Rosanna Nixon arrived at last at Andrew Forbes’ door. She had turned up the previous afternoon and waited for ten minutes, but other men had watched her then. She was not expected, because although she was theoretically under watch in Glasgow, their counterparts up there had not realised she had crossed the Border, going south. She’d rung Andrew’s number twice yesterday, from her London friends’ house, and got no reply. This morning she had rung again, early, and somebody had picked the phone up. Before she could speak, however, they had let it drop. Rosanna had caught the Tube.
From a distance, to the watching men, she looked interesting. She was female, which was almost good enough in itself, and she was very small and neat. It was cold, and she was snug in a long wool topcoat, with a white scarf and dark peakless cap. Her eyes were bright, her face quite pretty, and there was something waiflike and defenceless about her.
Paddy Collins, who had always had a yen for childlike women, got quite excited as she walked towards them down the street. When she turned up Forbes’ steps, he groaned.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he said. ‘Not another one. We’re in the wrong job, mate, d’you know that?’
His companion pressed the button and the camera, already trained on the front door, bleeped. He waited for the woman to turn her face back to the road. ‘You’re bent, you are,’ he said. ‘She only looks fourteen. My daughter’s that age, pervert.’
Collins said nothing. He knew his oppo’s daughter, and, secretly, he’d have given his left arm to get across it. Rosanna looked at her watch. She rang the bell impatiently, then hammered with her fist.
‘He’s in,’ said Paddy, conversationally. ‘Unless Jeff got it wrong. They logged him back at three o’clock this morning. Drunk as a fiddler’s bitch.’
The camera bleeped twice as Rosanna turned her head to survey the road.
‘She’s not that good-looking,’ he added. ‘I bet she’s thirty if she’s a day.’
Above Rosanna’s head, with a painful squeak, the bottom sash of a window was dragged open. Three pairs of eyes turned upwards. The two men in the Lada grinned at the sight. Rosanna stopped herself, but only just.
Andrew Forbes, what you could see of him, was naked. His chest was white, with tufts of sparse black hair about his nipples, and there was a clear line at the base of his neck where the darker skin began. Here was a man who rarely took his clothes off out of doors, even Doctor Watson could have worked that out. The colour of his facial skin was more problematical. It was pale and blotchy, almost grey in parts, and stubbly. The two men in the car could sympathise. They could almost feel his hangover.
‘I’m asleep,’ said Forbes. ‘What do you want? Why don’t you go away?’
‘Get one for the files,’ hissed Paddy Collins. ‘Casanova in repose. The seamy side of subversion.’
The fat man grunted in agreement. The camera swivelled in the aerial tip. Beep.
‘Excuse me,’ said Rosanna Nixon. ‘I’d like to talk to you. I’m sorry if I’ve come at an inconvenient time.’
The two men in the Lada were too far away to hear what was being said, but they knew full well that Forbes would let her in. She was a woman, wasn’t she? After a couple more minutes of talking, the tousled head withdrew. To their amusement, Forbes banged the back of it against the bottom of the raised window. Two minutes later, apparently draped in a sheet, he opened the door and Rosanna disappeared inside. For a moment there was silence in the car, save for the sucking of the fat man’s teeth.
‘The black tart’s dead, did you know that?’ Paddy asked.
‘I wonder if this is her replacement? Lucky bastard.’
In the hallway, Andrew was thinking of Alice Grogan as it happened. She was the last woman who had been inside his house, and he’d hoped she’d come again. His head hurt badly, because of Alice Grogan, and upstairs in his bedroom, still in its box, was a new duvet, and a duvet cover, and a bottom sheet. What a twat, he thought. What a hopeless prat I am. He was aware of the stink of stale beer on his breath and body, and he was half-aware of this new woman, standing in front of him. The silence was becoming embarrassing.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘Did you say Rosanna? Look, Rosanna, I shouldn’t have let you in. I’m shattered. Wrecked. I was on the bash last night till God knows how long. Then some swine rang me up this morning, early. I want to go to bed.’
Forbes was not a tall man, but Rosanna barely reached his chin. She bit her lower lip, not knowing what to do. If only Maurice Campbell could see me now, she thought.
The off-white sheet the man was holding round himself was coming open down his front. Already she could see a thigh, white and hairy. She made a rather desperate gesture.
‘I’ve come from Glasgow,’ she said. ‘Look, you’re coming apart. Look, where’s the kitchen? You go back to bed and I’ll bring up a cup of coffee. I’ve got to speak to you. I mean it. I mean – I really do need to speak to you.’
She had already told him where she’d come from, on the doorstep, and mentioned Maurice Campbell. Through the pain, Forbes was quite amused by her tenacity.
‘Oh balls,’ he said. ‘I can’t argue any more. I’m on the first floor. Follow the groans. The kitchen’s in the basement, down those stairs, and you won’t find any milk. I think you’re mad.’
He turned away, and the sheet fell to the ground. He cursed, and picked it up, groaning at the effort. Unseen by him, Rosanna blushed. He went up the creaking stairway like an old man.
Rosanna Nixon was a well-brought up girl, in the Scottish tradition. She had been born and raised in Milngavie, a quiet, wealthy Glasgow suburb, and she had done everything well, and according to plan. At eleven she had gone to private school, where she had sung in the choir, been good at games and excellent at practically everything else. She had passed her highers well, and had been accepted to read English at Glasgow University without a struggle.
Like most Scottish students she had continued to live at home while an undergraduate, travelling daily to her classes on the bus, then in the car her father bought her for her twenty-first. She had had one boyfriend for many years, and being religious, and not exactly wild about him in her private heart, had remained a virgin. Heavy petting, fine – it could be made to last all day if the mood was right, it could be reasonably squared with her belief in God’s morality, and it enabled her to keep a distance. When the boyfriend, at the age of twenty-three, had got fed up with it and gone away to England, she’d been relieved. Six months later he was married, and they still sent each other cards at Christmas and on birthdays.
In her parents’ eyes, things had started going wrong when she had got the journalism bug. After university she had trained as a teacher, and when she had the paper qualification, had travelled for a year. In Dublin, she had fallen in love with a reporter on the Irish Times – a married man, a Catholic – and, more strangely, with his job as well. After eighteen months she had lost plenty. Her virginity, naturally, the man, of course, a tooth and a fair amount of blood when the wife, hysterical with grief, had attacked her in a pub in Merrion Row, her happiness. Her parents did not know any of this, or if they did would not admit it. What really angered them was that she clung onto her stupid love for journalism. She took another course, began to drink a lot, moved into the flat in Kingsborough Gardens, and mixed with really quite unsavoury people. They were not entirely mollified when she got a job at last, and all their friends kept pointing out her by-line in the paper. They suspected, rightly, that she was not religious any more. Nor their little girl...
Rosanna, at twenty-eight, was wary now, about men and sex. In the course of becoming a re
porter and getting herself accepted, she had developed a technique for fending off her colleagues without offending them too much, or herself by her apparent complicity in the rather grubby game. It would have been a lot easier to keep her self-respect intact if she had told them to piss off and go back to their mammies – where she suspected most Scottish men actually belonged – but she didn’t hate them for it, merely felt it was a bit pathetic. She had come to terms, also, with the fact that it usually happened when drink had been taken. One love affair, while it may have torn her guts to ribbons, did not, she supposed, mean she was attractive.
Learning to be a reporter had taught her about men’s homes, as well. About run-down, dirty, unswept rooms in damp, unpleasant houses, in which she had lost the occasional battle on a greasy sofa. But so far, she had encountered nothing like Andrew Forbes’ kitchen. Standing amid the grime, and remembering the drink shattered white blob almost crawling up the uncarpeted stair above, she wondered if she had gone crazy. Then, gritting her teeth, she filled the one clean pan with water, lit the gas and found the instant coffee. Five minutes later she stood in the doorway of Forbes’ bedroom. He was asleep.
*
Bowscar Prison. Charles Lister.
The officers of Bowscar didn’t know what to make of Charlie Lister. He’d been remanded on a charge of assaulting a policeman, and had spoken fewer than twenty sentences to anyone since he had arrived. He had stripped and showered in silence, submitted to his medical examination and an anal search, and been taken to his cell. There was one other man in it, an old recidivist from Manchester with a drinks problem. Outside jail he lived on cheap wine and surgical spirit, and babbled incoherently. Inside he just babbled. But where Lister had merely ignored the prison officers’ talk, he had warned his cell-mate off. He had told him twice in twenty minutes that he did not want to talk, and on the third time he had taken him in a throat-hold and slowly throttled him until he was black and barely conscious.