by A P Bateman
It was exactly as Frank Holman had said. Six months, ten visits, then the final, dismissing, damning letter. But Grant had known all along. Ever since he had seen her expression in court.
Then had come the endless sleepless nights with only his graphic, subconsciously sadistic imagination as company. How that imagination could run riot during the long, early hours. He would close his eyes and see the two of them. See her laid back, her arms stretched behind her, gripping the headboard in ecstasy, taken to the heights of passion by her new lover. Her eyes closed, that look of concentration on her soft face, which slowly turned to ecstasy as the first violent orgasm shuddered through her and drove her to tears of pleasure, then pain. He couldn’t see her lover’s face, of course, but that was even more haunting. He was forever guessing.
“So what are you going to do?” Holman’s gravelly voice pulled him away from his painful, innermost thoughts, snapping him back to the harsh reality he now faced.
Grant turned towards his old friend and shrugged haplessly. “I don’t know.”
“I’ll tell you what you’re going to do,” Holman smiled wryly, knowingly. “You’re going to come inside with me. You’re going to have yourself a large brandy, and then we are going to talk about how you are going to earn yourself a clear two-million quid,” he paused and placed an arm around the younger man’s shoulder. “That, my friend, is what you are going to do.”
7
“Wait!” Mary Vaughan grabbed her partner’s arm, stopping him from opening his door. She glanced back at the entrance to the service station, then looked back at him. “You stay here, keep a watch on the target vehicle,” she paused, turning to look back at the building. “If they come back out, get hold of Forester on the net and tell him to take the lead.”
Davis nodded. Mary Vaughan was the experienced agent, and technically his superior. He settled back into his seat, his adrenaline subsiding as the woman opened her door and walked purposefully, if not elegantly across the car park towards the main building.
***
Matthew McCormick handed over the money in loose change, then carried his tray to where his three companions were seated, gratefully nursing their cups of tea. As he placed his tray down onto the table, he glanced over towards the entrance and watched the attractive brunette walk into the restaurant.
He had caught her with her guard down. She stared at him for a second, their eyes meeting for far too long. Awkwardly, she looked away, somewhat flustered.
McCormick sat down next to his old friend Patrick Hennessey, a bull of a man with a shock of flame-red hair. He kept his eyes on the woman as she helped herself to an orange juice and walked over to join the queue at the service counter.
As was usually the case in a motorway service station, the queue represented a fair cross section of humanity. Fat man with crew cut, wearing a colourful football strip with loyal pride, stood next to his smaller, but almost identical son. The boy must have been eight and had a matching earing. Like father, like son. Then there was the salesman, outfitted in the obligatory white shirt and floral print tie, trying to hold his personal organiser open whilst dialling on his mobile phone, while also attempting to push his food tray along the counter towards the impatient girl operating the till. Responsible for her ill temper and the queue’s near-standstill were a family of clearly limited means, for whom residence in the queue seemed the thing to do, even though only one person was needed to hold the tray of beverages and pay. Grandmother, mother, father, friend and a gaggle of young children who were playing with the clean cutlery in the trays and pulling at the cashier’s apron strings.
When Mary Vaughan had finally paid for her drink, she meandered across the dining room, with its criss-cross arrangement of fixed tables and chairs, and sat down two tables away from the four men. McCormick kept his eyes on the attractive woman. Perhaps she had looked at him because she was attracted to him, biding her time until he was on his own, and away from this motley crew of men at his table. But he was a realist. With his well-broken nose, thinning hair and pockmarked complexion, Matthew McCormick was not the most handsome of men. He scanned the rest of the dining room, checking to see if any more MI5 watchers had decided to make an entrance. The woman had that look about her. Not smart enough in appearance for a businesswoman. At an age where she should be coupled-off, perhaps with a couple of children in tow. But on her own, and apparently unhurried. Too obvious by far.
It was late afternoon and the car park was rapidly emptying. Most people were heading for their destinations, with few bothering to stop now and face the extortionate prices that they would undoubtedly be charged.
Dugan, a slightly built, fair-haired man and in his early thirties, turned to McCormick and frowned expectantly. “What do yer think to that, Matt?” he asked in his broad Ulster accent.
McCormick, oblivious to the ongoing conversation and the other men’s banter, looked back at his three companions, leant forwards conspiratorially and started to whisper, but turned his eyes back to the woman as he talked.
Mary Vaughan made no attempt to catch what the man had said. Instead, she sipped the remnants of her glass, stood up casually and walked towards the far exit. McCormick suddenly rose to his feet, darted through a quicker path between the tables and chairs and some fake foliage and walked ahead of her. Mary froze, albeit slightly, then continued to walk on. The man’s actions were far too abrupt, too sudden. She knew that she had been spotted. She glanced casually over her shoulder, catching a glimpse of the other three men, who were all walking silently behind her. They had all spread themselves out, covering any possible way of escape.
Behind her, and in the path of two of the men were two tables of customers, all eating and drinking. If it came down to a firefight they would undoubtedly be caught in the crossfire.
The man in front of her walked through the doorway and out into the foyer, where he stopped and started to look around suspiciously.
Mary Vaughan reached across her waist and felt the hefty, reassuring butt of her Sig P226 pistol. She made a conscious effort to remain calm; she could not afford to lose control of the situation now. Timing was of the essence; if the men were armed she would be gunned down for sure. Four against one, forget it. She had two options; bluff it out, or draw her weapon and fire first, and blow the entire operation. Ahead of her, the man with the unsightly pockmarked face turned to glare at her.
Shit! She thought. She chose to bluff it out.
She stuck out her shapely breasts, then smoothed her hands over her hips. “I see you’ve decided to leave your friends behind,” she paused, smiling seductively at the man in front of her, then ran a hand through her long, dark hair. “I thought I might have caught your attention back there. Couldn’t resist, could you?”
Matthew McCormick smiled. These scenarios really were strictly for the movies. And not great ones. He looked over her head and nodded at Patrick, who by now, was standing directly behind her.
Mary turned around, but it was too late. The big Irishman brought the edge of his hand down across the side of her slim neck, at a point just below and behind her right ear. She fell forwards, and McCormick caught her just in time. He hugged her close, keeping her to her feet, then turned to the rest of the men and scowled. “Get back to the fricking car! Go on, move it!” He glanced to his right and saw the entrance to the men’s lavatories, then looked back to the exit where the other three men were now casually leaving the building.
There was nobody in the foyer; the whole scene had passed entirely unobserved. McCormick kept her held close to him and walked towards the men’s lavatories, taking a chance that it would be empty. As he entered the brightly-lit, sanitised surroundings he heard the sound of a nearby toilet flushing, and then the sound of a buckle and zip fastening. He rushed her inside the nearest cubicle and slammed the door shut, just as the other occupant opened the door.
McCormick lowered the woman to the toilet seat and listened intently as the man washed his hands, then opera
ted the warm-air dryer. He listened for the departing footsteps, then looked down at the woman, who was slowly starting to regain consciousness. She looked up at him, wincing as pain stabbed through her neck. The Irishman pushed his face almost into hers and grit his teeth together before speaking. “Right, bitch, who the fuck are you? And don’t even think about bullshitting me! You’re a fucking spook, aren’t you?”
She stared up at him tearfully, then brought her knee up into his groin. The blow was savage, and caught him completely off guard. He gasped and fell forward to his knees, cupping his crotch with both hands in a bid to master the pain.
Mary Vaughan saw her chance and took it; she reached across her waist, caught hold of the Sig’s thick plastic butt and pulled the pistol free of its leather holster.
McCormick, startled at the sight of the pistol, suddenly forgot the pain to his throbbing groin and made a grab for the weapon. He slipped his index finger behind the trigger, preventing her from firing, then punched a short, fierce jab full in her face. She reeled backwards, cracking the back of her skull against the solid tiled wall. Unfazed by the woman’s injury, McCormick followed up the vicious attack with a punch to her sternum, then a back fist to her temple. He looked down at the woman, then calmly slipped the pistol into the waistband of his faded blue jeans.
Mary Vaughan looked up at him pleadingly, a trickle of blood running down over her lips and off the tip of her chin. “Please, please don’t…” she sobbed.
“What choice do I have, luv?” McCormick shook his head. “We are at war, us and the likes of you.”
“We’re not, just give the peace agreement a chance. It will work, you have to start trusting us,” she pleaded.
“Trust you! Is that why you were following us? Is that why you were carrying a fucking gun?” McCormick caught hold of her shoulder and steadied her. “You know that I don’t have a choice,” he paused. “And a right pretty thing you were too.” He smiled, then quickly reached down and spun her around. He pressed his knee into the small of her back and pinned her against the toilet cistern, he wrapped his arms around her, pinning her arms to her side and cupped her mouth with his left hand and pinched her nose with his right. She reacted at once, struggling against him, desperately trying to take a breath. His grip was like a vice and she knew she had no time. She started to convulse, but he held firm. Her last moments, dying in a dirty toilet cubicle, were swift and efficiently dealt. Within a minute she passed out and he kept his grip for another two minutes, long after she had died and slumped lifelessly to the floor.
McCormick had not realised just how dramatic suffocating her would be. He turned her around and lifted her body onto the toilet. Her eyes were blank and glossy. Her stare, distant and final. His fingers ached, as did his throbbing forearms, which threatened to spasm into a painful bout of cramp. Sweat poured from his brow as he pulled a length of toilet paper from the wall-mounted dispenser, then dabbed it across his face and neck.
The cadaver looked up at him, the eyes bulging slightly. There was blood seeping from the corner of one, a crimson tear which travelled steadily down the cheek. A thin dribble of saliva ran from its mouth, followed by a thick, pungent-smelling, blood-filled mucus. Once silky-smooth hair was now matted tangled, and the carefully, tastefully applied makeup had been smeared by the final tears of both panic and pain. During the struggle, her blouse had ripped open, exposing a firm breast. McCormick bent down and gently covered her apparent immodesty with the flap of silk.
“Sorry luv, wrong time, wrong place, that’s all,” he paused, then wrinkled his nose in disgust, as he took in the fetid smell of death. As is usually the case, the cadaver’s bladder and bowels had relaxed as the brain died. Death was a nasty business.
He looked down at what had once been a beautiful woman, thoroughly sickened at the sight, and somewhat sickened by what he had been forced to do. He had taken away all she had ever had, and all she would ever have. He had killed before, of course, but this felt different from any of the others. Soldiers were soldiers, they carried guns and they patrolled the country that he loved. The RUC were sell-outs, bastards every one. They strutted with revolvers on their hips and carbines in their hands. War was war, and killing was part of what he had sworn to do until his land was free of British rule. But this woman? It was different to setting up an IED or taking a pot-shot at a soldier from four-hundred metres away. It had felt so different, to watch the life slip helplessly and steadily from her, to witness her last moments on this earth. An assault rifle would clatter away in his hands, filling him with schoolboy excitement, bravado, and an overwhelming rush of adrenaline. A bomb would detonate, but by then he and the rest of his cell would be miles away. This was very different; this had sickened him to the core.
He turned around, eager to leave the body without further contact with those lifeless eyes, and unlocked the door, stepping cautiously out from the cubicle. After a quick, cursory glance, he gently closed the door then re-locked the bolt, using a ten-pence coin to turn the slot.
8
Simon Grant sipped from the balloon brandy glass, watching Frank Holman curiously as the man undertook the ritual of swilling the contents around his oversized glass.
“That’s what I said,” Holman paused. “Two-million. Impressed?”
Grant watched his old friend. Acting out his self-appointed role as lord of the manor when a few years ago Frank Holman was a lager drinker. He wouldn’t have known a vintage brandy from a single malt whiskey. Now he had the look of a man who owned plenty of both, and knew when to serve which.
“Or alternatively, you could just have the thirty-grand I owe you and try to prise Lisa out of that other bloke’s bed and back into your own,” he paused, then broke into a raucous laugh. “Oh sorry, I forgot, you don’t even have a bed of your own for her to go to!” Holman grinned, very pleased with this cruel shaft of irony as he proceeded with the swilling of his glass while the, vapours rose. “It does improve the aroma and flavour, you know,” he said. “I went on a wine tasting and spirit appreciation tour when I went to see about buying a share in a vineyard.”
Grant set his own glass down and stared at him contemptuously. “Why push the subject? I lost everything while I was inside. And still you try and wind me up. We used to be friends,” he said sadly. “I have been away from her for six years, I still love her.”
Holman smirked. “Used to be friends? I invite you into my home, I am willing to cut you into a deal for two-million quid, and you have the front to say, we used to be friends!” He struggled out of his deep chair and walked over to a small, Edwardian writing bureau. He opened the drawer and took out a large manila envelope. “Thirty-grand,” he announced, throwing the envelope across the room to where Grant was seated. It bounced off his knee and settled at his feet. “Twenty from your share, as agreed, and a further ten on top,” he paused breathlessly. “You kept quiet, kept me from doing bird, but you also cost me one hell of a lot of money and influence when you got yourself caught.” He glared at him menacingly. “I had trails to cover, bribes to pay. Investors in the enterprise were very edgy after you got caught. They spent six years covering their tracks in case you talked. I think ten-grand is enough compensation.”
“You were late, that was the reason that I got caught. And because of that idiot you used as a heavy man. Besides, I stashed the money while I was on the run, avoiding the police dragnet. I didn’t have to get word to you to let you know where I hid it,” he paused. “As for money and influence...” Grant glanced around the room and noted the luxurious furnishings. “I can see that I must have cost you a great deal of both.”
Holman shook his head despondently. “Just take the money and get the hell out of my house, I can’t be bothered with you anymore. You know your problem Simon Grant? You’re fucking ungrateful! Six years, big deal! I’ve just given you thirty-grand from a job where I made nothing,” he paused, glaring at him harshly. “Now I’m giving you the chance to earn yourself two-million pounds, but you j
ust forget it! Go to your beloved Lisa, show her your handful of notes and whisk her off into the sunset. Just don’t hold your breath! She was tired of you before you got yourself nicked - if she wasn’t, she wouldn’t have sat on another man’s dick before you were even sentenced!”
“That’s not true!” Grant flung himself out of his chair and rushed forward towards Holman, his fist raised in childish rage. Holman sidestepped quickly, surprisingly so for such an overweight individual, and punched Grant in his solar plexus, dropping him to the floor instantly.
“I thought you’d have toughened up a bit in a real prison.” Holman looked down at Grant and offered his hand. “Do you know what? If my grandmother was alive today, she could kick your bloody arse!”
Grant refused the offered hand and slowly pulled himself to his feet, pressing a comforting hand to the pain in his chest. The blow had knocked the wind out of his lungs and shaken him. The speed in which the big man moved had unnerved him. “Lisa didn’t cheat on me as soon as that. It’s not true, and you know it…” he said.
“Whatever,” he replied. “It was soon after though. Six months, I reckon.” Holman turned his back on him and walked over to the coffee table where he had left his brandy. He picked up the oversized glass, swirled the remnants around for a brief second or two, and casually sank the contents in one mouthful. He savoured the taste for a moment, then turned back towards Grant and smiled. “This is pretty good. One hundred years old, believe it or not. Not your everyday drink, but then again, this is not a day to be taken lightly.”