Home Front: A James Marshal Thriller Omnibus

by Thomas Waugh

  Talk about Marshal’s future, in relation to the Albanians, was conspicuous by its absence over dinner. Porter judged that his guest would speak about the issue when he wanted to. If he brought up the subject, or provided some advice, the fixer might unwittingly convey acceptance or encouragement of a violent course of action. But Porter sensed that the soldier’s course of action was already set in stone. “If I don’t do something about it, who will?” he had argued, during their meeting at the National Liberal Club. Although Marshal was largely free from vanity, he would not be able to escape his pride.

  Porter got up from his chair and turned up the electric lamp, which hung over the two men on the porch.

  “It’s getting colder. We can’t just rely on the whisky to keep us warm. But tell me, how was the temperature in the car today? Did you have to turn the heating on? I hope Grace wasn’t too cold towards you. Please don’t judge her too harshly if she was. Victoria told me that she has had a rough year. Quite rightly, she doesn’t like or trust most men. I don’t either. I think coming back home will be good for her, however. If it’s any consolation, Grace mentioned she enjoyed your company earlier.”

  “The London air must have made her light-headed,” Marshal drily replied, although he smiled on the inside.

  “You will be pleased to know too that you’ll be freed from your obligation early. Grace said that, once you return from Oxfordshire the day after tomorrow, she will arrange her own car.”

  Marshal tried to act pleasantly surprised, but his performance wasn’t wholly convincing. The only thing he was surprised at was his prospective sadness at not seeing Grace again. If he had been told the same news the previous night, he would have felt satisfied. Free. But he now thought about suggesting to Porter that he would be fine with driving his niece for longer. He thought about wording something similar to Grace, tomorrow morning. But he was split, like a broken host. In a time of war, you can have either guns or butter. You can’t have both. Marshal couldn’t be in two places at once. He couldn’t devote himself to Grace and the Albanians, as much as it sometimes felt like he led a dual existence.

  I need to go back to London. To go back for good.

  Porter got up again, this time to pop into the kitchen and fetch more ice. Marshal felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. A part of him wanted it to be a text from Grace. He just wanted to know she was okay.

  Hi. It was fun meeting you today. You said you were used to fast women, so I thought I’d drop you a quick message. Lol. Tamara. Xx

  Marshal didn’t reply, but nor did he delete the message either.

  15.

  It was now after midday. The weather was unseasonably warm. Sweltering. The sun stung. Marshal glugged down a bottle of mineral water and waited by the car, for Grace.

  Although Victoria had invited Marshal over for breakfast, he politely declined. Instead, he had half a packet of cigarettes and an apple. He also wanted to prove to himself that he had the restraint not to see Grace. To deny himself.

  Marshal continued to work. He began to consider how he could hurt the organisation he was up against. The NCA couldn’t extract any intelligence through enhanced interrogation techniques. But he could. Martin Elmwood would be unable to give the Albanians a taste of their own medicine – and torch their businesses. But he could. Marshal stared intently at the laptop, with a picture of Luka Rugova and Viktor Baruti on it. Boring or burning a hole in it.

  He also perused the news headlines, in between bouts of research. A fifteen-year-old black youth had been stabbed in Newham. The slaying of Samuel Diop was gang-related, it was reported. Samuel had been murdered on his way home from dropping off a delivery of cocaine to an IT consultant in Shoreditch. Samuel’s parents said that he was a sweet boy, “who wouldn’t hurt a fly” (despite having assaulted a pregnant female teacher when he was fourteen). He dreamed of playing football for his favourite team, Arsenal. He loved rap music. His hero was someone called 50 Cent. Even if the Albanians were innocent of any involvement in the killing, Marshal was happy to punish them for the crime.

  Beads of sweat formed on his temple. Violet panted at his feet. He idly recalled the opening line of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service:

  “It was one of those Septembers when it seemed that the summer would never end.”

  During the previous night, Porter had asked him about the extent of his ambition, what he wanted from life. Marshal remembered a scene from the spy novel. Bond was in a meeting with an expert on genealogy and family mottos. The expert mentioned that Bond’s family motto was, “The World is not Enough.” For Marshal, however, the world was too much. He didn’t want much from life, and he didn’t have much to give either.

  Grace appeared. He drank in the sight of her. She was wearing a light cotton floral print dress with very expensive, very sexy ankle-high black boots. For a moment he stood entranced, dumbstruck. Even her knees and elbows were pretty. Prettier even than Anne Hathaway’s, he speculated. Marshal remembered his promise to Porter, partly because he regretted making it.

  “Hi, how are you?” Grace said, visibly pleased to see him. There was a vibrancy, electricity, in her being, as though today was the first day of the rest of her life.

  Better for seeing you, Marshal thought.

  Grace had thought of the ruse the night before. In order to sit in the front with Marshal, she asked if she could charge up her tablet in the passenger seat. She wanted to develop a more personal, as opposed to professional, relationship with her driver.

  Marshal did his utmost, which wasn’t quite good enough, not to stare across at Grace’s chest – at the cross which hung down from her necklace. Was she Catholic? If he knew the answer to that there were dozens of other questions he need not ever ask. He thought it might seem odd if he just came out and asked her, for seemingly no reason. He tried to think of another, subtler, question that might provide him with the answer but suitably concentrated on his driving when he nearly missed his turn off at the right junction.

  Grace quickly cleared her inbox and then started to chat to Marshal about the party, and its host. Olivia was married to a hedge fund manager, Simon Yale.

  “Although he frequently tells people he’s more than a hedge fund manager. Simon has told me what he does more than once, although I can never remember any details. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m confused or bored… He calls himself a “Master of the Universe, like Sherman McCoy” – although he’s never actually read Bonfire of the Vanities. His super-power is his arrogance, although he may be deemed modest in relation to some of the guests at the event tonight… Simon says he’s invited George Osborne, Jemima Khan and Damien Hurst… I hope you don’t mind, but when we get to the house, I’m going to abandon you for a while, as I’d like to catch up with Olivia.”

  “That’s fine. I would say you could introduce me to the Witney set, but I fear I would then have to abandon them,” Marshal replied, before yawning. “God, I’m yawning even just thinking about Jemima Khan and Damien Hurst opening their mouths.”

  Grace laughed. Marshal thought how she had a lovely laugh and smile. Even if she used them more, they would still be precious. Her gaze lingered on him (she thought he didn’t notice, but he did). He was a puzzle she couldn’t quite work out. But wanted to work out.

  Marshal switched on his country music playlist. They passed by lush green fields, under a scintillating sky, listening to Hank Williams, The Dixie Chicks, Garth Brooks and Dolly Parton.

  “But I ain’t been home in I don’t know when

  If I had it all to do over again

  Tonight I’d sleep in my old feather bed.

  What I wouldn’t give for a little bitty taste

  Of mama’s homemade chocolate cake

  Tennessee homesick blues running through my head.”

  He covertly glanced at her smooth, tanned legs in the sunshine – and the way she tapped her booted foot to several songs. She would remark, within a few bars of a track starting, “good song” or “great
song” – and then mouth some of the lyrics.

  She was even familiar with Shawn Colvin.

  I think I’m in love, he joked to himself.

  Marshal wondered what he would say if she asked him if he was a Catholic. Was he lapsed? Non-practising? Devout? Deficient? He had collected a couple of sacraments, like minor service medals, which nearly everyone received. Ironically, he believed that life was sacred. He was anti-capital punishment and, though he was pilloried for it and treated like a heretic, anti-abortion. But doubt always bit into him, like a serpent that wouldn’t let go. Like barbed wire coiled around his colon.

  Marshal remembered the chapel at their base in Helmand and it’s make-shift altar. The smell of incense took him back to his childhood, when his mother was alive. The pearlescent candles crowned with tranquil flames. A pine crucifix stood by the entrance. Sometimes the figure of Christ, with his head tilted to the side, looked like he was indifferent to the world. Shrugging his shoulders. At other times he appeared tortured. Pitiful and pitying. The chapel door was always open. But Marshal always walked by rather than walked in. If he killed a Talib on Saturday was he supposed to confess his sin on Sunday? If he hadn’t done anything wrong, if he had saved others while damning the enemy, why should he prostrate himself before a non-existent, or ambivalent, God?

  When Marshal walked by the chapel, he often saw a fellow officer from his regiment, Cameron Bell, inside, praying. Bell had a face as shiny as a new penny. He was quiet, thoughtful. Non-confrontational. Marshal often wondered why Bell had elected to become a soldier, until he heard that he came from a military family, one far more established and distinguished than his own. Most of the squaddies thought the officer was queer and, when it was discovered that he composed war poetry, they nicknamed him “Wilfred”, after the WWI poet. The Paras was perhaps not the best place to trumpet that you were a Catholic, given the experiences of the Troubles, but Bell never shied away from his faith. It shaped his daily life. Marshal was surprised that religion didn’t play a larger part in the lives of his fellow soldiers. Death stalked them, like a shadow, every time they left the base. He considered that more might have hedged their bets. Or perhaps they kept their faith hidden, like money in a sock drawer. Maybe they didn’t want to show weakness, albeit Marshal judged that Bell’s faith was a source of strength and consolation. Some men would call out to God, or their mothers, when wounded or dying. Marshal briefly mused upon who he would call out to in the end.

  He had got drunk with Bell one evening. They spoke about the lack of helicopters, the Battle of Arnhem and T. S. Eliot’s The Wasteland. After God knows how many drinks, the studious officer spoke about his faith, with some subtle or not prompting from Marshal.

  “I go to the chapel to speak to God. It’s quiet there, so I can hear him. I know the men may scoff behind my back, but when I speak to God, I feel like I’m speaking to the best part of myself… Guilt is good. It teaches us not to make the same mistake, or commit the same sin, twice. Guilt is God. Proof of conscience. And a conscience is proof of the divine… I feel better for the act of confession and contrition. My heart – and body even – feels unburdened afterwards. You are a Catholic too. You must understand, no?” Bell, a former Ampleforth pupil, asked, laying a hand on Marshal’s arm. He replied that he half understood.

  Half the time when he passed by the chapel and observed Bell in prayer Marshal felt a wave of envy. He wished that faith, rather than drink, could nourish and sustain him. He wished that prayer could act an anti-biotic to his despair. But how many Hail Marys would he have to utter before he could atone for his crimes and wipe the slate clean? He would have to spend a year praying, to start chipping away at just one of his mortal sins? But would it not be worth it in the end?

  At other times, his skin prickled with scorn for Bell. Was he not experiencing a state of smugness rather than serenity? Was he not merely telling himself that God was forgiving him? It wasn’t devotion he was witnessing, but delusion. In Sunday School, Marshal was told that God loved Man because he was His creation. But if Man created God, do we not love Him for the same reason?

  “A penny for your thoughts,” Grace said, hoping to snap Marshal out of his trance, as she prompted him to crawl forward, whilst stuck in traffic.

  “You may well be overestimating their value. I was just thinking that I may need to find another route, if I can’t get through this.”

  “It’s up to you. I trust you.”

  Grace rightly sensed that he was deflecting, but she appreciated why he might not want to discuss certain things. “Without deceiving himself a man cannot live,” she thought, recalling a quote from Turgenev.

  Viktor Baruti sat in The High Life. He stirred his coffee four times and tapped his spoon on the side of his cup twice. As much as the Albanian appeared to be at peace, he had an itch he wanted to scratch. He could feel a pea beneath his mattress, preventing him from sleeping. The mysterious Englishman was still a conundrum. The intelligence officer had reached out to Junior “Windy” Gayle, an informant in Onslow’s gang. Gayle was a low-level dealer in the West Indian’s organisation, who Baruti paid in cocaine. The Albanian had contacted his informant to find out if he knew whether Onslow had recently recruited some outside help. A white Englishman, probably an ex-soldier. As far as Gayle knew his boss hadn’t employed anyone new, but his life wouldn’t be living if it turned out that he had misinformed the Albanian. And so, Gayle hedged his bets and said he had heard a rumour that Onslow was in the process of recruiting more men, but couldn’t be certain. Baruti asked his informant who would know, for certain, whether a specialist had been recruited. Gayle gave him a name of one of Onslow’s lieutenants, Curtly Lambert. The kryetar debated whether to abduct Lambert and extract the truth. He needed to know. The more information he had, the better informed his decisions could be. Should the Englishman be working for his rivals, Baruti wondered whether he could be bought? Most people could be bought, but not everyone. Baruti believed he could not be bought himself – or forced to turn on his friend and employer. His krye was his brother. They had been through much together, helped build an empire together. Whether the Englishman was working for another outfit or not, Baruti would still try and play the alchemist. Turn lead into gold, a problem into an asset. The Albanian would find the stranger and run a background check on him, to assess if he could be recruited. An English enforcer could prove valuable to the organisation. He could pay off his blood debt with someone else’s blood. If he was a kindred spirit, and possessed a predilection for violence, the Englishman might even enjoy his new job, Baruti surmised. Bisha and Bashkim would not be happy about their attacker avoiding punishment, but he wasn’t put on the planet to make those underlings happy. But first things first. They needed to track him down, before anything else could happen. The kryetar had sent out a priority message that his men should remain vigilant and observant. He also checked the app on his phone to ensure that Bisha and Bashkim were patrolling the right neighbourhood.

  The sound of a long-limbed escort, wearing a corset dress and stripper heels, walking across the dancefloor made him glance up from his phone. She sniffed, fixed her dress into place and wiped her mouth, having just come out of Rugova’s office. Baruti wondered how much force it would take to kill a woman, through tightening a corset. He pictured her eyes bulging, her scarlet lips turning blue.

  Rugova had been celebrating their recent success. Baruti had been in a meeting with his friend earlier in the day. Their business model was still going strong. By buying in bulk directly from the Columbians, and avoiding middlemen where possible, they kept their product at a cheaper price, by passing on savings to their customers. The margins were still attractive. The nightclub, and other satellite enterprises, were also performing well.

  “At this rate, we’ll be able to afford to go legit soon,” Rugova said, chuckling at his own joke and hoovering up a line of merchandise.

  They finally arrived at the gated property. The drive was long and straight, f
lanked by trees. The scene reminded Marshal of pictures of old slave plantation estates in Virginia. The house at the end of the road was decidedly modern, however. The building was wrapped in tinted glass, supported by ribs of steel, roofed with solar panels and partly set on stilts. The building was coated with a special self-cleaning lacquer, whatever that was – and shone in the pristine sunlight as though the cellophane had just been removed from the dream home. The main house was surrounded by a glass-walled squash court, a tennis court and kidney-shaped swimming pool. The heavily chlorinated water smelled and looked like bleach. Simon never grew tired of telling people how much the house cost, and that his architect had also designed houses for Tony Blair and Angelina Jolie. The house had been shortlisted for various awards – and had won a special “Green Medal” for its investment in sustainability. A couple of old university friends had sat on the panel which announced the prize. Grace thought that the house resembled those she had seen in Hollywood and Malibu, owned by movie moguls and film stars with more money than sense. Marshal thought the house could have belonged to a Bond villain. Or Bono. A large, unsightly bronze sculpture, that looked like a stick of rhubarb which had seen better days, stood outside the main entrance to the house. The installation, designed by the third most renowned gender fluid artist in the country, was called “Progress”.

  It seemed that several party guests had already arrived. Marshal mused how his Jaguar was the runt of the litter in the designated car parking area, given the number of Bentleys, Aston Martins and Porches he was surrounded by. He could have been parked at a Premier League club training ground.