‘I think I might be able to get to him.’
‘Where is he?’ Her voice was monotone, almost mechanical. The silver spoon remained suspended in her hand.
‘Best I don’t tell you too much.’ He ran his hand across his face. The beard had gone but it still itched. ‘I’ll need money.’
Marie frowned. ‘Surely the organisation would. .’
Lynch shook his head. ‘I’ve been told not to take it any further. The Army Council doesn’t want the boat rocked. They don’t want anything to derail the peace process.’
‘They what? Cramer is one of the men who killed my father. And he was directly responsible for my mother’s death.’
‘I know. I know. But they say I’m not to go after him. Let sleeping dogs lie, they said.’
‘Who said?’
‘Thomas McCormack. But he was speaking for the Army Council. Even if I find out where Cramer is, they won’t allow me to do anything.’
Marie leaned forward and put her coffee back on the tray. ‘And you’re prepared to defy the Army Council?’
Lynch put two heaped spoonfuls of sugar into his own coffee. ‘Cramer also killed my girlfriend. She was part of an ASU in London during the late eighties.’
‘ASU?’
‘Active Service Unit. Cramer was among a group of SAS soldiers who stormed the flat where she was living.’
‘And you want revenge, is that it?’
Lynch studied her, trying to read what was going on in her mind. ‘Don’t you?’ he asked quietly.
She held his look. ‘Yes,’ she said eventually. ‘Yes, I do.’
‘So you’ll help?’
‘There’s a limit to what I can do. I have a job. I have a life, I have. .’
‘It’s okay, Marie. I need money, that’s all.’
Marie relaxed. She uncrossed her legs, keeping her knees pressed primly together as if she thought Lynch might peer up her skirt. ‘That’s one thing I can provide. How much will you need?’
‘As much as you can give me. I’ve got to tell you, Marie, it won’t be a loan. I doubt that I’ll be able to pay you back.’
‘Like I said, I’ve got a job.’ She stood up and walked over to a Victorian side table. Lynch admired her legs as she bent to open a drawer. Under other circumstances maybe he would have tried to look up her skirt, but Marie Hennessy was the daughter of Mary Hennessy and as such was untouchable. Sacrosanct. She straightened up, a bank statement in her hands. ‘I can let you have two thousand tomorrow morning as soon as the bank opens. Will that be enough?’
Lynch smiled. ‘That’ll be just great.’
‘Do you have somewhere to stay?’ Lynch shook his head. ‘You can use my room,’ she said. ‘You’re too big for the sofa. I’ll sleep in here.’
‘Marie, I can’t thank you enough.’
‘You don’t have to. Just get that fucker Cramer. That’ll be thanks enough.’ She smiled sweetly, the girlish grin at odds with the obscenity.
Mike Cramer could feel the sweat trickle down his back and soak into the handmade shirt. It wasn’t a cold night but he was wearing the cashmere overcoat over his suit. Allan’s orders. Allan was standing slightly ahead of him and to his right, Martin was two paces to Cramer’s left. Both bodyguards were wearing dark suits that glistened under the floodlights. They were walking together across the tennis courts. The nets had been taken down, giving them plenty of space to work in. Cramer had been about to go to bed when Allan had knocked on his door and told him to report outside in his Vander Mayer clothing.
One of the lights was buzzing like a trapped insect but Cramer blocked it out of his mind. There were three men standing at the far end of the tennis courts, whispering. Martin moved to cover Cramer, getting between him and the three men. Cramer’s throat was dry and he was dog tired, but he forced himself to concentrate. The three men started to walk, fanning out as they headed in his direction. Cramer kept walking. The overcoat felt like a straitjacket and the shoes were rubbing his heels.
Allan’s head was swivelling left and right, keeping track of the three men. The man in the middle of the group, stocky and well-muscled with a receding hairline, moved his hand inside his jacket. Cramer tensed, but the hand reappeared holding a wallet. The man on the left of the group bent down as if about to tie his shoelace but Cramer could see that he was wearing cowboy boots under his jeans. Martin moved to block the kneeling man, but as he did the third walker pulled a large handgun from under his baseball jacket. Without breaking stride he fired at Martin, one shot to the chest. Cramer stopped dead, his right hand groping for the gun in its leather underarm holster. Allan began to scream ‘Down! Down! Down!’ and reached for his own gun. Before he could bring it out the man fired again at close range and Allan slumped to the ground.
Cramer grabbed the butt of his Walther PPK. The man walked away from Allan, holding his own gun at arm’s length. He was the tallest of the three, with a swimmer’s build, a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes as if to shield them from the glare of the floodlights. He was only six feet away from Cramer, his mouth set in a straight line, his eyes narrowed. Cramer yanked out the PPK, swinging it in front of him, trying to slip his index finger into the trigger guard but he was too late, the gun was in his face. The explosion jerked him back and he flinched, his eyes shutting instinctively so that he didn’t even see the second shot being fired.
‘Shit!’ he screamed.
Allan rolled over and looked at Cramer. ‘Bang, bang, you’re dead,’ he said.
‘It’s this fucking coat,’ said Cramer.
Martin got to his feet and dusted down his trousers before walking over to Allan. He held out his hand and pulled him to his feet.
‘You’re getting better,’ said Allan.
‘I missed the trigger,’ said Cramer. ‘I had the gun in my hand but I couldn’t get my finger on the trigger.’
‘You just need practice,’ said Allan. ‘You’re not trained in quick-draw. In the Killing House you go in with guns blazing, not stuck in underarm holsters.’ He slapped Cramer on the back. ‘You’ll be fine, Mike. Trust me. Come on, back to the starting position.’ Allan, Martin and Cramer went back to their end of the tennis courts while the three other SAS men regrouped.
Cramer slipped his PPK back into the holster, then tried drawing it quickly. It snagged on the pocket of his jacket and he cursed. As he tried again he saw the Colonel open the gate in the tall wire-mesh fence which surrounded the three tennis courts.
The Colonel walked across the red clay playing surface. ‘How’s it going?’ he called.
Cramer pulled a face. ‘Twenty-three runs and I’ve taken a bullet every time.’
‘You don’t have much longer to practice. The photographs have arrived in Miami. They’ll be sent by courier tomorrow. The money is being transferred through the banking system.’
‘I’ll be ready.’
‘Good. The profiler will be here tomorrow. Then you leave for London.’
Cramer shrugged his shoulders inside the coat. ‘I’m going to need a few more rehearsals. I’ve got to get my reaction time down.’
The Colonel nodded and tapped his stick on the playing surface, hard enough to dent the clay. ‘There’s been another killing. In South Africa.’
‘He gets around, doesn’t he? Have gun, will travel.’
‘There’s no turning back now, Joker.’ There was a flat finality about his words, a coldness Cramer hadn’t heard before, as if he was already distancing himself.
The boy heard his mother’s screams as he opened the front door. He fought the impulse to pull the door shut and run away as he stood on the threshold listening to the animal-like cries of pain. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the door-jamb. The screams stopped and the boy sighed deeply. He closed the door as quietly as he could but the lock clicked and his mother called out his name. The boy dropped his book-filled carrier bag on the floor and climbed the stairs with a heavy heart.
His mother was curled up on
the bed, her arms wrapped around her legs, tears streaming down her cheeks. The boy stood by the bedroom door, watching her. ‘I can’t take any more of this,’ she said.
‘You’ll get better, Mum,’ he said.
‘No, I won’t,’ she said.
‘You will. I know you will.’
‘It hurts,’ she said, curling up into a tighter ball.
She was so thin, the boy realised. Her arms were like sticks and the skin seemed to be stretched tight across her face. But she was still his mum. ‘Shall I call the doctor?’ he asked, his voice trembling.
‘The doctor can’t help,’ she said. ‘He can’t make the hurt go away.’ Her breath started coming in short gasps as if she was having trouble breathing.
‘Do you want me to get you some milk?’ His mother shook her head. ‘What about something to eat?’
‘You have to help me,’ she pleaded.
‘I will,’ he said. ‘I will, Mum. I’ll do anything to make you better.’
She shook her head again. ‘You can’t make me better,’ she said. She fixed him with her tear-filled eyes. ‘But you can stop the hurting. You have to get me my medicine.’
Dermott Lynch woke instantly at the sound of the shower being turned on. At first he couldn’t remember where he was, the wallpaper with its yellow flowers and the ruffles on the curtains gave the bedroom a feminine feel and there was a fluffy white bear on the dressing table which stared at him with blue glass eyes. Sun streamed in through the thin curtains and then he heard someone step into the shower. Marie Hennessy. Lynch looked at his watch. It was just before nine o’clock but he’d only slept for a few hours. Marie had kept him up late, talking over old times, begging him to tell her stories about her mother and father.
Lynch had taken care to sanitise what he told her. While her parents had both died for the IRA, Marie had never shown any interest in joining the organisation and Lynch didn’t think she knew the full extent of their involvement. Liam Hennessy had been an adviser to Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, during several bombing campaigns on the mainland during the late Eighties. He had also been the driving force behind the bomb attack on the Brighton hotel which had come close to taking the life of the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Following the death of Liam Hennessy, his wife Mary had assumed an even more active role, going underground and taking part in several high profile bombings, or spectaculars as the IRA Army Council liked to call them. A lot of people had died.
He sat up in bed and rubbed his face with his hands. It still felt strange without the beard, as if the skin belonged to someone else, but he was pleased with the shorter hair as he no longer had to keep pushing it out of his eyes. He leant over the side of the bed and put his hand on the pistol to reassure himself that it was still there. He got out of bed and was about to pull the curtains aside when he had second thoughts. The flat was overlooked by the houses on the other side of the road and it would be smarter not to let the neighbours know that Marie had had a visitor. It was warm in the bedroom and Lynch suddenly remembered the body in the boot of the Ford Sierra, parked down below. It would soon start to smell and it would only take one curious passer-by to have the whole area flooded with police.
The bedroom door opened and he turned to see Marie standing there, swathed in a purple towel, her hair dripping wet. She showed no embarrassment at his nakedness, and in fact it was Lynch who blushed. ‘Shower’s free,’ she said brightly.
Lynch stood with his hands across his groin like a footballer in a defensive wall. ‘Great, thanks,’ he said.
Marie’s grin widened and she raised one eyebrow. For a moment it looked as if she was going to say something else, but then she turned and left him alone.
Lynch went into the bathroom and locked the door before running the shower. Above the washbasin was a mirrored cabinet and he stared carefully at his own reflection. He ran a hand through his hair, wondering what else he could do to change his appearance. Marie hadn’t recognised him but the man in the van clearly had, despite the absence of a beard and the wire-framed glasses. He opened the cabinet door and looked inside: aspirins, contact lens cleaning solution, bottles containing different coloured contact lenses, cotton-wool balls, tweezers, a bottle of witchhazel, and several packets of contraceptive pills. ‘Tut, tut, Marie, a good Catholic girl like you,’ Lynch muttered to himself. She was a fine looking girl, and Lynch couldn’t help but wonder who she was sleeping with and what she was like between the sheets.
The coloured contact lenses were a good idea but he had perfect eyesight and whatever Marie’s prescription, they’d be an irritant if he tried to wear them. What he’d really hoped to find was hair dye.
He closed the cabinet door and stared at his reflection again. He looked younger without the facial hair, and the glasses made him resemble a vicar welcoming the faithful to a church garden party. There was a sudden knock on the door. ‘Tea or coffee, Dermott?’ called Marie.
‘Coffee. You don’t dye your hair, do you?’
There was a short pause as if Marie was trying to work out why he’d asked the question. Then realisation must have dawned. ‘No,’ she said through the door. ‘But I can get you some stuff from the local chemist, if you want. After breakfast.’
Lynch smiled to himself. Smart and beautiful. Just like her late mother.
Martin was tucking into a cooked breakfast when Cramer walked into the dining hall. His plate was piled high with sausages, bacon and scrambled eggs and there was a stack of buttered toast on a side plate. Martin winked, and raised his coffee mug in salute.
Cramer shook his head in amazement. Martin swallowed. ‘Hollow legs, Mike. Family trait.’ He picked up two pieces of toast, slapped a sausage and two rashers of crispy bacon between them, and slotted them into his mouth, as if posting a letter.
Cramer poured himself a mug of coffee and sat down opposite. A neighbouring table held a large television set and a video recorder, and a white power cord trailed across the oak floorboards to a socket in the wall. Cramer nodded at the television. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
Martin shrugged and washed his food down with a mouthful of coffee. ‘Dunno. The Colonel set it up first thing.’
‘Where’s Allan?’
‘On the tennis courts with the boys. Running through a few set pieces.’
‘How do you think it’s going?’
‘Could go either way, Mike. I wish I could say I was confident that we’d get him, but we’ve got so little time to react, you know?’
‘Yeah. I know.’ Under Allan’s guidance, Cramer’s reaction times were getting shorter and shorter, but he was still failing to draw his weapon more often than not. And even when he did manage to get his gun out, he’d yet to get in a killing shot before being shot himself.
‘Allan and I’ll do everything we can to give you extra time, but at the end of the day it’s like two gunfighters, except that you don’t know who you’re drawing against.’ Cramer sipped his coffee. ‘Not eating?’ Martin asked.
‘Is there anything left?’
Martin grinned and made himself another bacon and sausage sandwich. Cramer heard the Colonel walk into the dining room behind him. ‘Good morning,’ said the Colonel, lifting the lids off the stainless steel serving dishes and sniffing like a golden retriever tracking game. ‘How are the sausages this morning?’
‘First class,’ said Martin. ‘I don’t know why Mike here isn’t tucking in.’
‘Maybe later,’ said Cramer.
The Colonel spooned scrambled eggs onto a plate and used tongs to pick up two grilled tomato halves. ‘I spoke to our friends in the States,’ the Colonel said to Cramer. ‘They’re going to run a check on previous murders using shots to the head. They’ll get back to us if they turn up anything.’
Cramer nodded in acknowledgement. The dining room was cold despite the portable gas heater and the Colonel was wearing his Barbour jacket. He went over to the video recorder and put in a cassette before sitting down next to Cram
er. Martin slid to the side so that they could all get a good view of the screen. From his pocket, the Colonel took a remote control device. Before pressing the ‘play’ button, he pushed the plate of eggs and tomatoes in front of Cramer. Cramer started to protest but the Colonel silenced him with a wave of his hand. ‘Eat,’ he ordered and Cramer reluctantly picked up a fork. The television flickered into life. ‘These were taken by the security cameras in Harrods,’ said the Colonel. ‘The quality isn’t as good as it might be, but as you’ll see, it doesn’t really matter.’
On screen an Arab in desert robes moved through the store, preceded by three bodyguards. There were two other men in suits either side of the Arab, but they looked more like store executives than protection, and behind the Arab walked three women in black robes, their faces covered. Cramer didn’t hear the shots but he saw the first bodyguard slump to the floor and then the killer appeared on the screen, his arm outstretched as he aimed his weapon at the second bodyguard. The silenced gun fired twice again, two shots to the man’s chest. The third bodyguard died before he could draw his own weapon. Cramer’s mouth was dry. The killer was fast. Fast and accurate, faster even than the SAS men he’d been practising with on the tennis courts. The killer’s face was turned away from the security camera as he walked past the Arab and shot one of the women, a bullet in the face, one in the chest, then he walked quickly out of range of the security camera.
Cramer put a forkful of scrambled eggs into his mouth and chewed slowly as the screen flickered. This time the view was of the stairs. Two elegant blondes in designer coats were smiling and nodding and a young man in a denim jacket turned to admire their legs. The killer came into view, walking quickly, his head down and his face turned away from the camera, a handgun pressed to his side. One of the blondes put a hand to her mouth, her eyes wide and fearful, and then the killer was gone. Cramer frowned. ‘Was he limping?’ he asked.
‘Left leg,’ agreed Martin. Allan arrived, wearing a dark blue blazer and grey flannels, looking for all the world like an Olympic referee. Allan stood behind the Colonel, his arms folded across his chest. He nodded a silent greeting to Cramer, then studied the screen.
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