by Jan Needle
The call was strange, unreal. The Armagh Wolf was listening, and Michael was almost incoherent. Barbara was astonished, overjoyed, then horrified. Not at the money, that was nothing, but to his plight, his whereabouts, the hurt and violence in his voice. It throbbed with anger, and dislike. Dislike for her, he could not disguise it. It stabbed her to the heart.
‘We need a million and a half. Immediately. Go to Cyril France. Go to Sinclair if necessary. If the money can’t be freed up at our end, get the government to do its bit. They owe me. I was in prison. They have a duty of care for me. Don’t let them wriggle out.’
A duty of care! Conor Brady almost laughed. Masters himself was aware he sounded mad. He didn’t care. Sarah. Sarah Williams. He loved her. He would save her.
Barbara, hollowed out by grief, asked him for details he could not give. Of payment, getting the money, giving it to whom, and how. First get the money, Masters said, have it ready, then let Sir Cyril deal with it. The government. They had the expertise. Just ready up the money. Then contact me.
‘No,’ said Conor Brady. ‘We contact her. It’ll be from a new phone every time, new simcard, tell her to pass that on. And tell her to be quick. Tell her she’s got one day, or maybe two. Tell her.’
‘Barbara,’ said Masters.
‘I heard,’ she said. ‘But—’
But the Armagh Wolf had cut her off.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now would you ever like a little cup of tea?’
*
Llanbedrog. The caravan
The drumming of the rain on the alloy roof of the immobile mobile home was a strangely comforting sound, Rosanna thought. She was standing by the cooker, staring through the clear patch she had rubbed in the window-condensation, and the whole effect was absurdly domestic – or rather, like the memory of a childhood holiday. Away up the hill, through a gap in the trees, she could just make out the pepperpot tower in the gloom, and closer to, there were sodden sheep, their tails turned to the wind. When the kettle boiled she would make some tea and take it into the main section, where a dying gunman lay. She would sit down, and serve, and they would drink, and no one was afraid. It was all quite mad.
When they’d finally plucked up their courage and knocked on the caravan door, neither Rosanna nor Forbes had really had the faintest notion what they should expect. It was possible, they knew, that there were armed convicts inside, but it seemed too unlikely for them quite to credit it. So – with water dripping down their necks and their thick cords getting waterlogged – they had rapped on the small blue door, and waited.
Inside, the knock had caused confusion. By now, Angus McGregor was in the bed, and neither he nor Hughes or Carole Rochester ever expected to see him leave it alive. He still held the pistol, though, and his eyes were bright.
He covered both of them, and told them not to move. But he coughed, and when he coughed, he bled.
‘For Christ’s sake, Angus,’ said Alan Hughes. ‘Do yourself a favour, man. Let me open it. The police wouldn’t come knocking, would they? And if it was them, who would you shoot?’
‘I’m not going back, Alan. Never. No surrender.’
Hughes nodded, with real sympathy. He put his hand out.
‘Give us the gun,’ he said. ‘I won’t rat on you. We’re in it together, mate. No one’s taking you.’
To his surprise, McGregor reversed the revolver. His hand, as he held it out to Hughes, was shaking.
‘You’re a good man, Al,’ he whispered. ‘No surrender.’ Hughes rubbed the window with his sleeve and looked outside. He put the revolver in his pocket and opened the door.
Forbes said casually: ‘We’re friends of Carole Rochester. Is she at home?’
And before Hughes had time to respond, he was up the step and in, with Rosanna close behind him.
‘I’m sorry,’ he apologised, ‘I used to be a reporter. It’s a habit. Can we come in?’ And when Hughes produced the pistol he added, still gaily: ‘Oh shit. A Bowscar boy. Oh fuck.’
Carole Rochester was staring at them.
‘But I don’t know you from Adam. Please, Alan. Put that thing away.’
‘We’re not police,’ Rosanna said. ‘It’s difficult to explain. Eileen Pendlebury gave us your address in Leicester, then we came down here. It’s about a man called Angus McGregor. About his brother. I—’
Forbes, watching the sick man, said shrewdly: ‘She saw him die. You’re Angus, aren’t you? We got the governor to let you out. We told him about Jimmy. He was murdered.’
Over the next few hours, the shifting pattern of relationships in the caravan fascinated Forbes and Rosanna. It was clear that in the time they had spent as hostages, Alan Hughes and Carole Rochester had formed a bond. They sat close together while they talked, although not touching, and they quite often answered for each other, or filled in gaps. Equally, they had a bond with McGregor, they no longer feared or hated him, they would protect him.
Hughes rinsed the compress on his neck several times, and Carole held a cup of warm weak tea to his mouth so that he could drink.
They explained how McGregor had come to Leicester not to find Carole but her father Sir Gerald Turner, whom he planned to harm because of what had happened to his brother. Carole, watching their faces, added: ‘This may sound shocking, but he probably deserved it, too. Alan has this theory about politicians, and it seems to me spot on. My mother says my father’s different, but he’s not that different. He may not be exactly evil, but he’s an awful hypocrite.’
She was very calm about it. Frank-faced and quite attractive in a strained, exhausted way. Rosanna caught herself wondering if she was slightly mad, then remembered all that she had been through. Maybe she was sane, entirely. She asked Hughes what his theory was. He smiled, self-effacingly.
‘It seems rather overblown now, but back in Bowscar I wanted to understand how jail could be so awful yet so acceptable. I read somewhere that Carole’s father was a really nice man, deeply civilised and all that guff, and I wondered if it could be true. He’s talked about reforms for years but jams more and more of us in single cells until they’re bursting, and he’s flogging jails to high finance to turn an easy profit. I used to wonder did he want an explosion, maybe? Did he want the whole thing to go mad? It’s not much of a theory, is it? I fancied talking to him, though. Asking him to explain the thought processes. Or acknowledge the great mystery.’
McGregor said: ‘He wanted to have a chinwag with him. To convince him he was doing something wrong and had to stop. And when he disagreed – my job was to slaughter him.’
It was a McGregor joke, presumably. He laughed, a wheezy, crippled sound. He groaned at the agony it caused him. When he had finished, Forbes said to Carole Rochester, ‘But it wasn’t your father who caused Jimmy McGregor’s death. It was Donald Sinclair.’ To McGregor he added: ‘Did you not know that? Sir Gerald’s assistant, his junior minister.’
‘Never heard of him,’ grunted McGregor. ‘Ach, awa’ tae hell. I’m killing no one now anyway, am ah? My killing days are o’er, thank God.’
‘You know Sinclair, don’t you?’ Forbes said to Carole.
She smiled. Some smile…
‘Eileen told you. Oh yes, I know Sinclair, he’s the real rat. But how did he kill Jimmy? You mean he was responsible?’
Andrew said: ‘He was in charge at Buckie. Covertly. He took most of the credit, but not the blame.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That sounds like Donald.’ To Hughes she added: ‘I had an affair with him. Before I got married. Before I sussed out politicians. We had a little flat across the river, his “safe house”. I wonder how many more he’s had like me, poor silly cows.’
‘What was he like?’ Rosanna asked. ‘We’re interested. We’d still like to talk to him. We think it could do some good. We think – do I sound stupid? – we think it would be nice to...rub his nose in something.’
Carole liked the idea.
‘He’s corrupt,’ she said. ‘He’s very clever, but you migh
t just knock him down. That was the oddest thing about him, really. He’s incredibly naive in many ways, especially about himself. He’s corrupt, but he really doesn’t know it. He used to be a journalist and he made a fair amount of cash, he did all right. Then he married money and became an MP and he’s a name at Lloyds and he’s got directorships galore, you know, he’s paid thousands just to be there, to be a conduit to the government. He’s lousy, stinking rich with no more talent than he ever had before, but he can’t make the connection, he still thinks he’s a good man, he doesn’t realise how it’s all distorted him.’
She was enjoying herself. Catharsis maybe, Andrew thought. Carole gave a dirty chuckle.
‘Take me, for instance. He more or less told me – excuse the language, Angus, I’m a big girl now – that he was married to a boring cow, and I was a superb fuck with a brain, and he would marry me. He believed it, I’m sure he did. But what he meant, I guess, was that I was Gerald Turner’s daughter and I could help him reach the top, perhaps. It was all so holier than thou, he was always bringing conscience into it. But underneath it all, he was prepared to do anything for power. Every move he made, practically, was done with unconscious calculation.’
She laughed.
‘That’s good, isn’t it? “Unconscious calculation”! But it’s true. And this was years ago, long before the finance deals, the cash corruption, the Masters thing.’
Andrew Forbes felt a rush of excitement. That old black magic, he thought! His instincts, metaphorically, sat up and begged.
‘Masters? Michael Masters? What’s he got to do with Sinclair?’
‘Oh, I don’t know any details,’ said Carole, dismissively. ‘Anyway, they must have fallen out, it can only have been Sinclair who got him into jail, can’t it? Although I suppose my father did the secret business with the judges, like the papers said, that’s very much his style. No, they’ve had something going on between them for years, something crooked. They’re quite alike in many ways, although I only met Masters once. Both bastards.’
Rosanna’s lips were parted. She was hardly breathing.
‘And now Sinclair and my Dad have fallen out,’ said Carole. ‘That’s funny, too. Dad never lost his cool when Donald messed me up. He more or less told me it served me right and I should be ashamed of myself. I don’t think he even let on to Donald that he knew, it might have caused embarrassment. I rang up once and threatened to commit suicide. Mum and Dad went sailing.’
Despite an almost wild desire to make something of it, both Rosanna and Forbes crushed their reactions. Rosanna could tell from the way he rubbed his eye how frantic Andrew was, and she had to lick dry lips, she could not stop herself. Their hunch was right. Sinclair was a crook, he was involved in something big, and dirty, and bizarre. With Michael Masters? But Carole found the subject less than interesting, it appeared, it was just part of the past to her.
When evening came, Forbes and Rosanna – aching to get a crack at Sinclair, to get away and somehow track him down – became uncomfortably aware that they had no idea of their position. McGregor had gone to sleep or become unconscious by late afternoon, and the four of them had little left to say. The pistol had never returned to view, but everyone was aware of it. Hughes broke the deadlock.
‘Where will you be heading, then?’ he asked. ‘Are you booked in somewhere, or are you going back to England?’
‘That’s what we’d like to do,’ said Andrew. ‘But it’s rather up to you in some ways, isn’t it? Will you let us go? I’d like to use the info Carole gave us. Confront Sinclair with it somehow, I don’t know.’
He smiled at her, trying to hide his nervousness.
‘It’s a lot more powerful than you think it is, I think. I think we could ... well, we could get the McGregor story out into the open, at least. That would be worthwhile, wouldn’t it? Do you mind if we use it?’
‘I don’t mind at all,’ said Carole. ‘As long as you don’t tell anyone where we are. We haven’t got much longer, have we? Angus is going to die or something soon. We’ll call an ambulance when he gets too bad, he won’t let us otherwise, then Alan will give himself up. They won’t find us before that, will they?’
‘It’s us they’re looking for, apparently,’ Rosanna said. ‘But we’ve seen no sign of them. I think you’re pretty safe, considering. Are you sure you don’t mind?’
‘Look, Donald Sinclair can rot in hell for all I care. They all can. Just don’t give us away.’
Andrew said: ‘That flat. Across the river. I don’t suppose you could remember...?’
Carole stood and picked a pencil from a shelf. She wrote an address on a piece of paper.
‘I’m not likely to forget it.’
‘And he’s not likely to still be there, I suppose.’
She smiled.
‘I wouldn’t bank on that,’ she said. ‘I told you, in some ways he’s naïve. It would probably never occur to him I wished him anything but well. I bought him a watch once, incredibly expensive, a sort of token. I’ve seen it on TV a lot of times. He still wears it. He’s also exceedingly conceited. Try it.’
The farewells they made were stilted, and emotional. Rosanna and Forbes walked in silence for some while, the warm rain lashing in their faces.
‘We should be doing handsprings, shouldn’t we?’ said the Mouse, as they drove towards Porthmadog. ‘We’ve caught the bastard.’
‘We’ve got to land him yet.’
‘I feel so bloody sad,’ Rosanna said.
In Leicester, two large men in suits had found the Fiat Uno. Across the road, a lady prepared a pot of tea for them.
*
Queen Anne’s Gate. Donald Sinclair.
When Sir Cyril France contacted Sinclair about the money, things started moving very fast. Barbara Masters had been contacted by her husband, and a ransom must be raised immediately. One million five hundred thousand pounds, not negotiable. The time scale was crucial, critical, fatal. Which was the reason he had come to him, Sir Cyril said. The government would just—
Sinclair stopped him then, and said he’d ring him back. France was astonished, Sinclair adamant. However urgent, there was something he must do. He left the offices, took a taxi, and high-tailed it to the flat. From there he could talk in confidence. How many telephones were safe?
The call was gritty.
‘We need time,’ said Donald. ‘Cyril, this must not come from me.’
‘For Christ’s sake!’ said France. ‘Donald, Barbara’s in pieces! Get the money, man! Find the bastards that have done this! Blurring the edges will be difficult, but we’ll do it somehow! We can’t just let him die!’
Sinclair’s brain was getting back on line. A politician’s reason, fully formed.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘If we can keep it secret, we can save his life. If the news gets out, we can’t pay a ransom. A million and a half of public cash to save a criminal. With all the other men in Bowscar who might be taken hostage too. It would be a flood tide, a tidal wave, a fucking tsunami! I’ll handle it. Leave it to me. I’ll sort out Mrs Masters, and the government.’
‘Good. But we haven’t got much time.’
‘Sherlock,’ Donald said, ‘no fucking shit.’
He spoke to Judith next.
‘Someone’s got to take the blame,’ he said. ‘and someone’s got to win by it. That’s the nature of the beast.’
‘And you’re the beast,’ said Judith. ‘The best.’
*
Cynthia’s Beam. Sarah and Rogers.
As the hours and the days ground by, the pattern of Sarah’s life grew duller, duller, duller. She felt so detached, that she wondered if she had perhaps gone mad. Most of the time she did not care, except when Rogers made up truly awful things to taunt her with.
As when he said that Michael had told him all about her, and drawn him a map of where the boat was, and detailed what she liked to do in bed. As when he asked her, over and over again, if she was enjoying it while they ‘made love’, and sp
at at her, or hit or bit her when she cried, unable to say yes. As when he mentioned casually, with his penis grinding up and down inside her mouth, that he was HIV positive, then said it was a joke.
The hardest thing to take of all, in terms of dislocated actuality, was his attitude to the boat. He made her show him how the engine worked, how the tiller fitted to the rudder head with the shaped brass pin, where the spikes were kept when not in use, and how one drove them into the bank for mooring.
For this, Sarah went into the cabin and returned with the hammer from underneath the cooker, where she had lately hidden it. Normally, and from then on, it was stowed beside the steps in the small doghouse – a name which pleased Rogers especially. Because the tow-path was so accessible, and escape so easy, he tethered Sarah tightly by the ankle with a length of polypropylene so that she could not get out of it – and called her ‘Little Bitch’ from then on.
His theory was that they should move, like all the other boats, in case somebody noticed their immobility. More than that, he wanted to. He thought canal boating sounded like good fun. He allowed Sarah her restricted mobility as if it were a privilege, and told her if she screamed or shouted out, or tried to attract attention, he would come below and beat her to death with a mooring spike, or better, stick it up her. She did not disbelieve him. When he drove the boat too fast she even told him, automatically, that if he caused a wash that damaged the canal bank, someone might report him, and rightly so. He immediately throttled back, patting the tiller with affection.
‘It’s about time I became a law-abiding citizen,’ he said. ‘Magic.’
Sarah killed him the night he came back drunk from a canalside pub. He had left her bound and tightly gagged, and tucked his hair inside a woollen bobble cap that also hid his distinctive bald dome, and switched the cabin lights off. When he returned he had to cut her bonds, because his fingers were too clumsy to untie them for a fuck. As he cut the gag, the knife blade nicked her ear and she bled profusely. While Rogers took his clothes off, falling sideways into things and cursing noisily, she went naked to the lavatory on her ankle leash to get some tissue paper for her ear. She also got the four-pound hammer.