Civvies

CHAPTER 3

Thin curtains of chill wintry drizzle swept over the gleaming drill square, neat gravel paths and sodden grass verges of Browning Barracks, Aldershot. Known as The Depot, this unlovely collection of flat-roofed, slab-sided buildings, resembling nothing more than an inner-city council estate, housed the three regular battalions of the Parachute Regiment and units of Airborne Forces. Through the rain-streaked window of the Sergeants' Mess, lingering over his second cup of lukewarm coffee, Frank Dillon watched two truckloads of raw recruits just pulling in, 'Joe Crows' fresh from Civvy Street. Some of them would jack it in tomorrow, Dillon knew, others not last till the end of the week. As for the rest, they would go on to experience the joys of twelve weeks of mental and physical torture before they faced the ultimate test of 'P' Company – five days of sheer undiluted hell on earth.

Steeplechase, Log Race, Endurance March over twenty-eight kilometres of rough country, bergen rucksack loaded with 22kg of bricks and gravel, Speed March, Assault Course, including the dreaded Shuffle Bars – scaffolding poles fifty feet off the ground and no hand-holds -Stretcher Race with a twelve-man team hauling 75kg of steel bars and sandbags over twelve kilometres of Welsh peaks and gullies.

The ones that came through it would know – with the bright shining certainty of hardened survivors – that they'd earned the right to proudly wear the Red Beret with its winged badge of lion and crown above a floating parachute.

Their first day in, Dillon thought, watching the Joe Crows disembark, with it all before them. After eighteen years, four months and sixteen days, he was going out. Back to Civvies. Back to a world he hardly remembered. Another lifetime, a different Frank Dillon altogether, so it seemed to him, all those years ago – a gangling lad with a shock of floppy black hair, an attitude problem, and a sheaf of pathetic school reports, plus two scrapes with the law that had nearly landed him in Borstal. The Paras had sorted that out, hair, attitude, even the required discipline of book-study, the lot. They had shaped and trained and hammered him into the mould of a professional fighting man, a member of one the finest and fittest elite corps in the world, Commandos and SAS included. At thirty-six he was still remarkably fit. Still possessed the skills necessary to strip down and assemble blindfold the SA80 family of weapons, stalk an enemy through brush and bog, hurl himself into space through the door of a Hercules C-130 at eight hundred feet. That was Frank Dillon's story in a nutshell, serving Queen and Country. Question was, what the fuck was he going to do now?

Dillon pushed his cup away and checked his watch against the wall clock. 7.20 a.m. Better snap to it if he was going to catch the London train.

A Radio One DJ was babbling something about Red Nose Day as he went through the double-doors and ran along the covered walkway to the NCO's billet, feeling the sting of cold rain whipping through. His suitcase was packed, lying on top of the four grey blankets, plumbline straight and squared off at the foot of the bed; just a couple of things for his leather grip on the four-drawer chest, and that was that. The small room with its single window and plain cream walls had the austere look of a hermit's cell, but it had been home.

Dillon tossed in his shaving bag, opened the top drawer and took out a metal case tooled in dark leather. He didn't intend to open it but he did. Sergeant Dillon gazed at the three medals embedded in green velvet, the UN, the NI, the SA, not really seeing them. Now they too belonged to another life. He snapped the case shut, dropped it in the grip, zippered it.

In the square wall mirror he gave himself a final regimental inspection. A stranger in dark blue blazer with breastpocket badge, maroon tie embroidered with the Para motif, grey trousers pressed to a knife-edge, stared back at him. But for the moustache and the scar, a thin straight line below his left eye on which stubble never grew, he mightn't have recognised himself. As long as Susie and the kids did, Dillon thought without humour. Daddy's coming home – for good! Good or ill, that remained to be seen.

One last call, to settle his NAAFI account and collect his rail warrant. Dillon handed over forty quid, received his change and a receipt from the Duty Sergeant, who then gave him a pink slip.

'Rail pass, and that's it.' Duty Sergeant Sinclair watched Dillon fold the paper and slip it into his wallet. There was a brief, awkward silence. Then Sinclair, instead of saluting, took Dillon's hand in a firm, rough grip. 'Good luck in Civvy Street, Frank.'

The Dakota from World War II, parked on the quadrant of grass outside the Regimental Museum, flanked by an equally ancient artillery piece and heavy-duty machine-gun, looked in better nick now than in its operational days. Kept spick and span not just for show, but for a purpose.

Under a grey, restless sky, a few bright patches breaking through, Dillon walked by the aircraft, raincoat buttoned up to the neck. His eyes moved from the bulbous nose and along the clean sweep of the fuselage, slick-wet and shining from the downpour. Those new recruits he'd seen arriving earlier would be standing in front of the old war-horse in a few days, lined up with their instructors for the course photograph. Some of them, a highly selected few, would make it from the despised DPM forage caps -craphats – to Red Berets, from Joe Crows to proud new Toms. They'd take over where he left off.

Dillon walked on, not looking back.

The minute Susie Dillon heard the phone ring, she knew. So did Helen, Susie's mother, eyes narrowed, mouth pulled down at the corners in that told-you-so expression. She tugged her cardigan straight and folded her arms, glaring at the table, moved specially into the centre of the small living-room for the occasion, laden with plates of sandwiches, cakes, biscuits, bowls of peanuts, even a bottle of sparkling Spanish wine. All that time and trouble and effort wasted, would her daughter never learn? But it was the two boys she felt most sorry for, Kenny and little Phil. Hair brushed, faces shining, self-conscious in their brand-new Marks & Sparks shirts and shorts, they sat happily together on the sofa, dive-bombing the hearth-rug and vari-flame gasfire with a model Spitfire.

Susie went through to the tiny cluttered hallway, glancing at her watch to avoid her mother's eye. She stepped round the children's bikes and picked up the phone. Helen heard her say, 'Hello?' and then call to the boys. 'Quick, it's your Dad!' They were off the sofa and gone in a trice, giddy with excitement.

And then, as might be expected, Susie's puzzled, rather plaintive tone. 'But… where are you, Frank?'

Helen shook her head at the ceiling, sighed, and picked up a sandwich and gouged off a corner. Don't let it go to waste – she chewed, grimacing – even if it was fish paste.

Pissed as arseholes. Or very nearly – but sufficiently in control to keep the slur out of his voice, Dillon hoped. He concentrated through the din of voices and 'Peggy Sue' thumping from the juke-box. 'I gotta go, Sue… no, tell 'em I'll see ' em later. I'm fine, really -' He smothered a belch. 'Sorry about this… Bye.'

After the second attempt Dillon got the receiver back in its cradle. He blinked and contemplated the five pints of Courage bitter lined up on the bar by his elbow. He'd had… how many? Eight, nine, ten? Couldn't remember, as if it made any bleeding difference. He took a deep gulping swallow, head thrown back, and plonked the glass down, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Four to go.

It was somewhere around late afternoon, he could tell that by the rays of sunlight slanting in low through the red and green panes of the Haverlock's front bow-window, spotlighting the thick blue smog of cigarette smoke over the pool table. First call had to be the ex-Paras' watering-hole. Because, Dillon thought with sudden blinding clarity, he was one of them now. Ex-Para. He knew what it meant but the words wouldn't sink in.

'Eighteen?' Harry Travers was saying to a young guy further along the bar, waving his pint glass and slopping beer everywhere. 'Eighteen? You're looking at a man,' belch and a sway, '… at a man who sank twenty-five…'

'Cheers, Harry,' Dillon said, raising the next one and taking the head off it. But Harry, his face a torrid hue, sucking beer from his gingery moustache, was jabbing the air with a blunt finger, fixing the young guy with watery blue eyes. 'Get this… security company wants three drivers, one armoured car and a motorbike. I said, "For a grand, mate, I'll get the Royal Tattoo and Joan Collins." ' His mouth twisted. 'Wanker.'

Dillon surveyed the packed bar. One or two young blokes, probably still regulars by the lean, trim look of them, but mostly older hands, a couple of years out and already getting slack around the middle, beer guts hanging over their belts. Not for him, Dillon made a drunken pact with himself. He'd work out, keep a tight grip. Or else he'd end up like Wally over there, balding, fagging it, looking ten years older than his forty-five, shirt-buttons straining to hold back a phantom pregnancy nearing full term.

At least Jimmy seemed to have adjusted well to civvy life, Dillon thought. There he was, the wheeler-dealer, plenty of scams cooking and more on the back-burner, handing out folding stuff.

'And you get double,' Jimmy was saying to a young, tanned bloke who looked as if he was just back from a stint in Belize, 'if you can get me a dozen MBC suits. An' I can take as many DMBs, jungles, as you can lay your hands on. I got transport, no problem.'

Jimmy glanced over, winked at Dillon, flashed his confident grin. Looking very sharp in an expensively tailored, shot-silk blue suit and crisp white shirt, a fine gold chain fastened with studs to the collar points and looped across his matching necktie of gold and red diamonds on a blue ground. He'd let his red hair grow longer and wore it slicked back with grease; seeing Michael Douglas in Wall Street had left a lasting impression.

'Two of us on the door,' Wally draped his arm round Dillon's shoulders, droning on with another of his interminable stories, 'thirty-five a night, an' I'm not jokin', mate – I've had more fuckin' fights than I had the whole time I was in Belfast.' He gestured to the blonde landlady, working like a Trojan behind the bar. 'Two more here, Sybil, three over there…'

Dillon made a token protest, knowing he should be making tracks, but Wally was in full spate.

'You can keep hittin the Irish an' they bounce… I'll tell you, Frank, there are more of those bastards over here than they got over there!'

Feet apart, legs braced, Dillon tried to keep the floor in place. Gazing straight ahead at the optics, he stated, 'I gotta go home…' the fixed dead stare of a man recognising an ultimate truth.

Somebody came through the smoke and whispered in Harry's ear. He beckoned Jimmy over and they closed around Dillon, Harry bending close, giving the word, Dillon half-catching something about 'Kilburn' and 'bunch of paddies' and the name of a club.

Wally's face lit up. Letting out a yell, he hooked Dillon's neck in the crook of his elbow, announcing, 'Let's send this man out into civvies fighting! Yesssss! Come on!'

Getting wind that something was up but not knowing what, Dillon said vaguely, 'Where we going?' as he was carried in a scrum to the door.

At the cigarette machine, a tall, ashen-faced man with hair hanging in his eyes, pissed as a fart, did a staggering turn and collided with Dillon. About to brush past, Dillon stopped dead in his tracks. He gripped the man by the shoulders, stared into the lost, bleary eyes.

'Steve -? Steve Harris?'

In place of the handsome Jack-the-Lad, six-feet-two in his stocking-feet and with, as he never ceased to tell anyone within ear-shot, a dick that was perfectly in proportion with his Adonis body, was this pathetic, shambling wreck. Unshaven, bloated and boozed out, Steve 'the Puller' Harris, renowned for his sexual exploits, not allowed near anyone's wife, or sister, and on one occasion, Smother Smith's mother!… Steve, one of Dillon's best lads, was almost unrecognisable.

'Leave him, Frank, just leave him, he's a waster,' Jimmy said contemptuously, and as if to add insult to his remark, he stuffed into the drunken Steve's torn top pocket a tenner. 'Right, we mustered? Let's go…'

Dillon held Steve's face in his cupped hands. 'Steve! It's me, Frank, Frank Dillon, what's happened to you, sunshine, eh?'

The lost eyes, sunk deep in unknown depths, roamed about and finally registered a tiny spark. The slobbering mouth opened, but instead of words, a choking, throttled growl issued out, grotesque and mechanical and meaningless as an alien's.

Dillon's heart filled his chest. He put his arms round the lad and pulled him to him, mumbling, 'Steve, oh Steve, Steve

News at Ten was just starting when Susie's mother decided she'd had more than enough, thank you very much, and put her coat on to leave. The table had been cleared, except for one plate, one cup and saucer, and the bottle of Spanish sparkling, now half-empty. The boys were long gone to bed, asking where Daddy was even while Susie was tucking them in. Now she drained her wineglass, trying not to ignore her mother at the hall door, at the same time fighting to stay calm, not lose her temper. But Helen wouldn't let it go.

'Some homecoming. Bloody hero doesn't even turn up.' She tucked her woolly plaid scarf under her chin. 'I'm sorry for the boys…'

'He'll need time to adjust, Mum.' She hated the plaintive tone in her voice, but it just came out that way.

'He's not going to find it easy to walk into a job with no qualifications.'

'He's doing this for me and the kids, and if he wants to let off steam for a few days, then that's his business.'

'Eighteen years, and all he's got to show for it is three thousand quid.' Helen's blue rinse quivered. 'That mate of his got near a hundred thousand…'

Susie snapped off the TV and faced her. 'That was for his leg. He lost his leg. You ask his wife which she'd prefer – better still, ask him. Goodnight, Mum.'

CHAPTER 4

Jimmy Hammond swung the re-conditioned jeep into Kilburn High Road, shouting into the slipstream and not giving a damn who heard, least of all Steve, 'He's a waster, Frank!'

Harry leaned back from the passenger seat, poking Steve's knee as he addressed Dillon. 'Just make sure he stays put. He's a bloody liability.'

Steve sat between Dillon and Wally, apparently insensible to what was being said, or even the universe at large. After about quarter of a mile the jeep turned off the main road and jinked down several badly-lit backstreets, darkened shops and shuttered industrial premises sealed tight for the night.

As they drew up beneath a streetlight, Jimmy said tensely, 'How many did he say there were, Harry?'

'Five. Said we'd recognise one of the bastards… here's Johnny now.'

A figure muffled in a scarf and donkey jacket emerged from an alleyway, collar up around his ears, and skipped along the damp pavement on rubber soles. 'Frank – how you doing, man?'

Johnny Blair, another old mate from the Regiment, shook Dillon's hand. Then he noticed Steve. 'What you brought him for?'

Wally clambered out, a bit unsteady on his pins. His feet were bad anyway, ever since he'd lost three toes to frostbite on Wireless Ridge in the Falklands. 'It's Frank's first night in civvies!' he chortled.

Johnny laughed, rubbing his hands together. 'Right, there was five at last count, up in the snooker hall. Could be more…'

Jimmy was pulling on a pair of leather gloves, heavily reinforced along the knuckles. Under the gloves he wore three chunky gold rings.

'What's going down?' Dillon asked, sobering up fast.

'Bit of paddy bashin', Frank,' Harry grinned. He jerked his thumb, glancing towards the green light that glowed above the entrance to a club, half a block along on the opposite side. Then spun completely round saying, voice way back in his throat, 'Holy Shit! Look who just walked out – it's Keenan. Any money Tony McKinney's with him!'

Keenan, apparently, wasn't slow on the uptake either. Seeing the group under the streetlight, he flicked his dog-end into the gutter and hurried back inside.

'How do you want to do it?' Wally said, fumbling in his pocket. 'You want a cosh?' he asked Dillon.

'Wait.' Jimmy laid a hand on Wally's arm, looking into Dillon's eyes. They were a team once more, a professional fighting unit, and Sergeant Dillon was back in charge. 'Over to you, Frank.'

Dillon straightened up, sucking in a breath. The haze of alcohol evaporated from his brain, in its place cold, crystal-clear reality. 'How many exits? We do it in or outside? We'll need a man either end of the alley… an' we need to know how many there are.' He hooked his arm around Wally's shoulder. 'Let's flush 'em out…'

Three minutes later they were set, men posted, exits covered, Wally as the decoy stepping through the doorway, the light above making a green bird's egg of his bald head. He looked up the narrow staircase to where Keenan was standing, shapes rippling on the frosted glass panel behind his back.

'Wanna game?' inquired Wally casually.

'It's members only.' Keenan's eyes were flat, hard. 'And you're on our turf, so back off!'

'Wrong, you Irish git,' said Wally softly, mounting the stairs. 'This is our territory…'

'Stay put… You bin warned.'

'Then come on down!'

The provocation had the desired effect, as Dillon knew it would. Wally grabbed Keenan's foot as he kicked out, the next second the pair of them rolling down the stairs and into the street – the signal for all hell to break loose as the staircase was suddenly filled with Irishmen wielding billiard cues, one with a baseball bat, some with bottles.

Flattened against the outside wall, Dillon, Jimmy and Harry Travers bided their time. The important thing was to work as a team, backing each other up, using the techniques of karate and kick boxing against an undisciplined mob used to street brawling. Dillon chopped the first man down with a blow to the windpipe, employing the straight edge of his hand like a knife-blade. He sidestepped to avoid a swinging bottle, swept the attacker's legs out from under him, and let Jimmy finish him off with two stiffened fingers in the eye-sockets. Harry got a crack across the back of the head with a billiard cue, grabbed the man by the lapels and broke his nose with a single head-butt. But the Irishmen were a tough bunch – biting, kicking, flailing about with their weapons – while the Paras worked with clinical, methodical patience, covering each other's backs.

Left behind in the jeep, Steve saw a bunch of men charging along the alley, having piled out of the rear exit and doubling round to cut off the retreat. Steve yelled a warning but nothing came out, just a harsh guttural croak. He stood up, smacked his hand against the car horn and kept it there. This alerted Dillon all right, it also drew attention to Steve, a lone target, and three of the men broke away and ran across the street, hauling Steve down onto the road and taking it in turns to kick the living shit out of him. Dillon saw it happen, but he had one or two little problems of his own. He dealt with one, knee to the groin followed by a rabbit punch, the other a bent-elbow thrust into the larynx. And then he was up and running, aggression pumping through him, his tunnel vision directed at going to Steve's aid. In the distance, police sirens wailed. Without breaking his stride, Dillon yelled back to the others: 'Cops! Move out – it's the cops. Pack up… Pack up!'

Steve was on the ground, both hands protecting his throat, curled up in his suede jacket as the boots thudded in. Dillon kneed one of them in the small of the back, got a fist in the nose that rang through his head, and took another out with a leg sweep. He wiped blood from his chin, hearing the sirens blare as two, maybe three police cars came screaming off Kilburn High Road, less than five hundred yards away.

The jeep whinnied, then roared into life. Jimmy gunned the engine, Harry and Wally legging it across the street and leaping in, Johnny Blair close behind clutching the side of his head. Down on one knee, Dillon took Steve's wrist and hoisted him across his shoulder, tossing him into the back as Jimmy crashed into first gear and shot off. Dillon ran, arms reaching out to him, and was hauled on board. The jeep did a screeching two-wheel U-turn, missed a parked van by millimetres, and raced off, leaving behind a dozen slumped, groaning bodies as the police cars wailed up, blue lights strobing the dark street.

Smothering a yawn, Susie Dillon side-stepped the kid's bikes and opened the front door of the flat, wrapping the dressing-gown around herself more firmly when she realised that Frank had someone with him. For a moment she just stood there blinking, brushing a hand through her tousled russet hair, smoothing her fringe down while she took in Dillon's bloody nose and the yellowish bruise on his right cheek.

If anything, the young man he was holding up looked even worse, his face like chopped liver, as if he'd been given a right going over.

'Hello, love!' Dillon greeted her, tossing his suitcase into the hallway and shrugging off his leather grip, looped over his shoulder. 'This is Steve Harris, he was one of my Toms. Steve…?'

But all that came from Steve was a croaking rasp as his head lolled forward. Dillon manoeuvred his way into the hallway. 'He can't talk – had his throat shot out by a sniper in Belfast…'

'Where do you want to put him?' Susie asked, shifting the bikes out of the way.

'Shut the door… fix up the spare room eh?' Susie closed the door and stood watching him helping the boy upstairs. First day out of the Army and he looked like he was back from the bloody wars.

'You gonna chuck up, Steve?' she heard Dillon say. Susie sighed and propped up the bike her husband had still managed to knock over.

'He was awarded how much?' Susie gaped at Dillon and repeated in a hoarse whisper, 'How much?'

Dillon shot her a fierce look across the bed they were making up in the spare room, warning her to keep her voice down, though going by the retching and spluttering as Steve threw up in the bathroom next door, there wasn't much need.

'Over a hundred grand, and he's not got a cent left – nothing. He's had to tap me for a few quid.'

Susie unfolded a sheet and shook it out. 'What did he do with it?'

'Stupid bastards hand over a cheque to a twenty-six-year-old, already having head trouble. He was a right handful when he first joined up – he took some beatin'.'

'A cheque?' Susie said incredulously, tucking the sheet in at one side while Dillon did the other. 'They gave him a cheque? I don't believe it…'

Dillon scowled. 'Captain told him in hospital he'd never jump again. He went from Al fit to P6 – P7's deceased. They tried to say he was forty per cent fit, the C.O. had to appeal. Eventually got put down seventy-five per cent disabled, so he'd been through it before they sent him the cheque. By then he was -' he indicated the pillows ' -pass 'em over, a head case.'

Susie tossed over the pillow slips, studied Dillon as he stuffed the pillows inside. She said quietly, 'How long is he staying, Frank?'

'It'll just be until I can get him back on his feet -' He glanced up as Steve appeared behind Susie in the doorway, and said in a cheerful voice, 'Hi, Steve! You want a cup of tea?'

Susie edged past Steve, giving him a quick smile. 'I am just going to get a blanket,' she enunciated loudly.

'He's not deaf, Susie.' Dillon beamed at Steve, beckoning him in. 'Come on, get yer head down!'

'I'll put the kettle on.' Susie lingered a moment on the small landing with its square of MFI cord carpet, looking in as Dillon helped Steve off with his suede jacket, torn at the shoulder seam, a muddy smear down the back. The boy seemed permanently hunched, hair hanging over his face, and she knew now why he wore that paisley-patterned scarf, tied gypsy-style, round his neck.

She hissed at them, 'And keep the noise down, the boys are asleep. They wanted to wait up, but -' Susie couldn't keep up the frost, she sighed, resigned over the years for the unexpected, 'Welcome home, Frank!'

Steve up-ended the bottle of Tuborg into his glass, filling it to the brim, with the studied deliberation of the experienced piss-artist intent on not spilling a drop. They had been sinking the booze all afternoon, after Dillon had dragged Steve to meet the head of the 'Swallow' club, a club organised to assist men from all sections of the military with vocal chord damage. The membership entree was simple, if you had had your throat cut, or blown out, you were in. The major who ran the club showed Dillon his scars, and with eerie clarity explained that he spoke on a burp of wind, having no vocal chords. They had a speech therapist and a number of men who would gladly assist Steve. It would be a long slow process, but, joining them in the nearest bar, and gulping a frothing pint, he suggested that this was the best way for the 'beginners' to learn, as the beer was good and gassy. The major had thoroughly enjoyed demonstrating his prowess, but Steve had remained stubbornly silent, simply downing one pint after another. They had virtually had to pour the burping major into a taxi, before deciding to return home and continue the 'lessons'. Dillon was beginning to think the entire episode had been a waste of time, even more so as Steve was very obviously an alcoholic, sinking more and more pints in rapid succession, but remaining in stony silence.

'For chrissakes Steve, you got to just try it.'

Dillon having joined Steve in the boozing was getting as pissed as he was. 'Go on, just try… burp and say a word.'

Steve raised his glass to his lips, sank a good half of it, and emitted a raucous belch that somewhere had 'Fuck off in it. Steve had been offered speech therapy sessions, but the attractive woman had been at such pains to make him comfortable, she had made him feel more and more inadequate. A woman he could have pulled spoke to him as if he was ten years old, kept on saying that as soon as he had a break through he would feel better, as if he was sick, or mentally retarded. He was not sick, he was not mentally sub-normal, he was just dumb, and his frustration turned into aggression until he was asked not to return unless he was sober. He had attempted one more session, and was sober, but hearing his efforts replayed on tape, hearing himself speaking like a distorted Donald Duck finished him off completely, he decided that he would prefer to remain silent.

Dillon kept on and on, even trying it himself, until Steve burped out a few words, almost as if to show Dillon that he could do it, but chose not to. Dillon thought Steve sounded like a Dalek with laryngitis, but he heard an entire sentence. 'Piss-Goff an' gleeeve glme gl gla… lone!'

Dillon applauded Steve's effort, doing his best to focus, elbows in a puddle of lager on the formica kitchen table littered with their training session.

Steve gulped down another mouthful and, riding on the back of a huge belch came… quite clearly, 'Baaa… ssst… aaard.'

'Yeah, great, that was great,' Dillon nodded, with an effort forcing his eyelids wide, as if they were lead shutters. '…bastard, right? Am I right?' Dillon grinned crookedly. 'You bastard.'

Steve doubled over in a wheezing laugh that turned into a paroxysm of gurgling and bubbling. He went a shade of blue and had to thump himself in the chest to clear the air-lock in the plastic tube that served as his wind pipe. Only Steve knew the terror of the tube getting blocked. Even though he had been told over and over by the doctors and the specialists just how dangerous it was to get drunk, to be out of control and that a vomit attack could suffocate him, he ignored the warnings. He could no longer laugh, but gave guttural snorts, the sound to his own ears hideous. Steve hated his disability, was incapable of caring for himself because he felt he was a social misfit, his only way of dealing with it to become even more of one than he already was. Dillon was not the first to try and help him, but somewhere in the Steve's confused, drink-befuddled mind he had a premonition that, maybe, Frank Dillon was the last hope he had of straightening out. He couldn't as yet thank him, he didn't know how to…

Susie walked in to find them laughing like drains, noting the rows of empty bottles with a decided coolness. 'Frank, I want to make the supper! The kids are hungry -'

Dillon waved her to silence. 'Show her how you talk…'

Susie waited patiently, her hand on Dillon's shoulder, as Steve drank straight from the bottle, held his breath, and belched, 'Suu – sss – ieee'

Dillon, three sheets into the wind, didn't catch it, though Susie did, and couldn't help smiling. 'My name – did you say my name?'

Steve gave her a boyish gleeful grin, tickled to death. Susie's smile faded at the edges as she saw Dillon pick up a crate of lager and make off with it. 'Where you taking that?' she demanded suspiciously.

But all she got was a muffled profanity as he collided with something in the living-room, followed by a yell, 'Steve – upstairs. Mind the bikes!'

Susie stood on the blue-and-white squared linoleum, surveying the wreckage of her kitchen, listening to their unsteady progress through the hallway and up the stairs. A bell tinkled, a clash of tangled spokes, one of the bikes was over. Susie closed her eyes and counted to fifteen.

CHAPTER 5

Steam rose from Dillon's face. His hair was wringing wet. A towel around his neck and tucked into his tracksuit, black Puma trainers on his feet, he reached the third-floor landing and turned, jogging on the spot, and bellowed down at Steve: 'Come on, come on, keep your knees up! – come on! One-two, one-two, on your toes -'

Two flights down in the block of red-brick council flats that formed a square surrounding a paved central court, Steve Harris laboured up the concrete steps, a bergen containing four house bricks wrapped in newspaper strapped to his back. Ten-past-eleven in the morning and he was on his sixth climb, chest heaving, his tracksuit top practically drenched. Still, in better bloody shape than he was a week ago, Dillon thought with satisfaction. Couldn't beat the tough Para training regime to work the flab off, tauten muscle tone, get the old heart-and-lung machine functioning.

And in the process drag Steve up from being the useless fat knacker with no future he'd turned into after two years in civvies.

Susie came out of the flat, buttoning up a fawn topcoat that had seen better days, a shopping-bag in the crook of her arm. 'I'm going to the shops,' she announced to Dillon, still jogging, elbows back and forth like pistons. 'You want anything?'

'Where are the kids?' Dillon asked, but he was more interested in Steve, who'd stopped, panting for breath, on the floor below. 'Oi! Move it, Steve, don't slack off. Keep moving.'

'They're at school.' Susie's voice had a sharp, irritable edge that had nothing to do with kids and school, everything to do with the subject she'd tried to raise at breakfast.

'Are you going to sign on, Frank? You said you'd go today…'

Steve finally made the last few steps, stood with hands on hips, head thrown back, gasping for air, totally wiped out.

'Go on – down again.' When Steve didn't immediately respond, Dillon stuck his arm straight out and pointed. 'Go on!'

Off he went, staggering a little under the heavy pack. Susie tapped her foot. 'Frank? Did you hear what I said?'

'Yeah, yeah, I'll go this afternoon…' Dillon brushed past her on the stairs, jumping three steps at a time, calling out, 'Right, back up, Steve, come on, push yourself.' He skipped down and started pushing Steve up from behind. Susie had to flatten herself against the wall as they came by. 'Don't leave it too late, Frank… you should have gone yesterday.'

'I said I'd go, all right?' Dillon snapped back at her. From the landing above he called down, ' Oranges. Get some oranges for juice, not that bottled stuff!'

'Oh, right -' Susie said, marching down, heels ringing on the concrete steps. '- I'll just go and pick 'em for you! You want them, get them yourself.'

Wiping his face with the towel, Dillon silently cursed himself and hung his head over the brick parapet, but she was lost to sight. That was all he knew, rapping out orders to squaddies and Toms – Do this, soldier, do that – expecting to be obeyed on the instant, and it was hard to break the habit, even with his own wife. He'd better start learning. This was Civvy Street, where anarchy ruled. Nobody took orders from anybody.

Dillon, about to turn away and suggest to Steve a shower and a well-deserved beer, happened to notice a car parked by the estate entrance. Nothing too unusual about that – except the locals in this part of the East End who could afford to run a jalopy just scraped by with a clapped-out Skoda or a Lada with a failed MOT. Not a sleek black J-Reg Jaguar Sovereign 3.2. The Jag's push-button window slid down, a face appeared flashing a cocky grin, red hair plastered straight back, and Dillon ducked away, but a fraction too late. 'Hey, Frank!' Jimmy Hammond hailed him. 'Frank!'

'How ya doin'?' Jimmy greeted him, climbing out, all smiles, giving Dillon a bear-hug and a punch for good measure. 'You okay? Everythin' okay?'

'Yeah!' Dillon's glance slid sideways to the passenger in the back seat. 'Just been workin' out.'

Jimmy followed his look. 'You know Mr Newman, don't you?'

Dillon gave a brief nod, went over as the rear window glided down; a slender elongated hand encased in blue-black leather took his in a soft, limp handshake. 'Hello Frank, you remember me, don't you?'

Dillon remembered the voice too, flat and expressionless, nearly as soft as the handshake, so you had to listen hard. Some people had to take orders after all, Dillon reminded himself, and this was the voice that gave them. He said politely, 'How ya doing?'

'Jimmy said you were looking for work…'

Dillon cast a sidelong glance at Jimmy, cool and sharp in his tailored blue suit leaning against the Jaguar's glossy bonnet, arms nonchalantly folded, wearing his fat grin. Always the fixer, trying to run other people's lives for them. Newman uncoiled from the car, a tall emaciated figure that with his dark business suit and leather gloves put Dillon in mind of a long dry-skinned lizard. And yes, there was even something reptilian in the sunken flaking cheeks and deadpan grey stare, the tongue flicking out along the thin wide mouth.

Newman strolled a few yards, a cheroot trailing smoke in his wake, and indicated with a small incline of the head that he wanted a private word. Dillon followed, waiting as Newman sent a plume of smoke thoughtfully into the air.

'I've never forgotten the way you came round… it, well, it meant a lot to me.'

'I was just sorry it had to be him.' Dillon shuffled, staring down at the soiled black Pumas. 'He was a really good soldier…'

'My boy thought the world of you, always mentioned you in his letters home…' Newman's flat delivery skirted the edge of something near real emotion. 'We never hit it off that well, I reckoned he joined up to get away from me.' Newman's pale grey eyes sought Dillon's. 'I've sort of made it my business to give a helping hand to his pals when they get into civvies.'

'Billy was a good lad,' was all Dillon could think to say.

'Meant a lot, you coming round the way you did, to Maureen. She's dead now. I think Billy's going took the heart out of her… we only had the one, just the one son.' Newman studied the glowing tip of the cheroot. Outwardly, the neatly-parted grey hair and grey moustache gave him the distinguished yet dated look of a thirties matinee idol, but Dillon wasn't deceived. He didn't, never could, trust those cold flat eyes, a predator waiting to pounce.

Dillon shifted uneasily as Newman placed a hand on his shoulder.

'I reckon I owe you a favour. I can offer you a lot of work, and with Jimmy on my payroll, be like old times…' The sunken cheeks creased in a smile. 'He's a card, isn't he? Eh? Jimmy… I think you'd make a good team.'

'Thanks, Mr Newman, but -' Dillon shrugged, staring at the ground. 'I've got a few things in the pipeline…'

'Have you?'

'Yes.' Dillon cleared his throat. 'I want – well, eventually – to open up a security firm. Me and a few of the lads.'

'Good.' Newman seemed genuinely pleased. 'That's a good idea. Well, if I can be of any assistance, you know Jimmy can always put you in touch. I'd like to see you set up with a few readies in your hand. I know it's tough coming out, and, well, I'll be straight with you, Frank -'

Dillon stepped back, held up his hand. 'That's just it, Mr Newman. I want to go straight. Whatever Jimmy does is his business.' He turned quickly away, jogging off. 'But I appreciate your offer…'

Newman stared after him, the friendly warmth instantly extinguished by a glacial stillness, as if Dillon had struck him. With a flick of the wrist he tossed the cheroot away and made an abrupt gesture to Jimmy, who slid off the Jaguar's bonnet and went after the running figure, now leaping up the concrete stairway, two at a time.

'Frank… wait! Wait a minute!'

Dillon halted on the first-floor landing and looked down as Jimmy reached the bottom of the stairs, swept-back hair bouncing, features strained in a matey grin.

'No, Jimmy, you wait.' Legs braced apart, outstretched arms pressed against the brick walls either side, Dillon looked in no mood for the old pal's act. 'I don't want any involvement with that crook. I don't want him brought round my place, near my place. And if you'd got any sense, you'd walk -'

Jimmy broke in. 'He's trying to do you a favour!'

'Whatever I did for Billy, I'd do for any of my lads. I joined up because of men like Newman. His own son tried to get away from him. He's rotten. Billy knew it, I knew it.' Dillon's voice sank, but the intensity didn't. 'I know it, Jimmy, because his type was all I had going for me when I was a kid. Now I want more, Jimmy, and I want it legit.'

A slight flush mottled Jimmy's cheeks. He gave one last guarded look at Dillon, as if he'd been caught out in a lie, then turned sharply away, muttering tersely, 'I hope you find it, Frank!'

Dillon watched him go. Angry, bitter, but most of all sad.

Jumped-up pompous twits with their bloody bits of papers and petty rules! Newman's visit had put him in a foul temper and his trip to the DSS office later that afternoon didn't improve it one iota. Christ, he could have sat on that plastic chair staring at the muddy green wall till the cows came home for all the good it did him, till his teeth dropped out. What did they care? Three, four years ago Dillon had run across an old mate with sixteen years' service under his belt who'd recently got his discharge. This bloke, ex-sergeant, had asked the C.O. for a reference, set him up in Civvy Street, and the C.O. had written in his file: 'Suitable for petrol pump attendant.' After all the bullshit about serving Queen and Country and upholding the honour of the Regiment and drumming it into you that you were the cream of the Army's elite fighting men, that's how the system treated you. All of a sudden you were a social leper. Brain-dead. About as much use as a wet fart in a wind-tunnel. Thanks ever so much for all you've done, old chap, now kindly fuck off.

Well, the DSS could go fuck itself, in spades, as far as he was concerned, Dillon thought savagely, slamming the front door shut behind him and stopping in the nick of time from cracking his shin on the bikes in the hallway. He went through, wrenching his tie loose, feeling sweaty and ridiculous in his best suit that Susie had pressed for him that morning. She looked up, eyebrows raised, hopefully or expectantly, he was past caring.

'I been in that dump all afternoon, waiting like a prat, for my number to be called out -'

'And? Well, what did they say?'

'Number twenty-three to cubicle four…' Dillon mimicked a prissy officious voice. 'Number twenty-four to cubicle five. I was number fifty-three. Went to the friggin' job centre section, came back and I'd missed me number!' He took a pale-green ticket from his breast pocket, tore it in half and scattered the bits on the coffee table.

'So you didn't sign on, did you?'

Dillon was on his way back through the hallway, jacket half-off. 'I'll get Steve, go for a run.'

'Fine, you go and see Steve.' Susie was up quick, after him. 'And while you're up there could you tell him to throw out his empty bottles and his dirty bandages… Did you tell them about your experience in the Army? Frank?'

Leaving his jacket draped over the banister post, Dillon started up. 'Anythin' I've done was in the Army, and that don't mean nothin'. Bloody IRA think more of us!' He suddenly turned, hot angry eyes burning down into hers. 'Every Para's worth seven grand to them. Six, if you're dead.'

Steve leaned over the banister, mouth working, croaking at Dillon. 'YoU'D bE – burp -BetTEr off cOMin' OuT -burp - Of thE nlcK!'

Too right, mate.'

'What did he say?' Susie frowned.

'He said I would be better off comin' out of the nick!' Dillon threw a punch. 'Move, Steve – let's be havin' yaaaa!'

Steve gurgled something and Dillon responded with force, 'Right, mate, half-way houses, career officers, counsellors, subsistences, therapists, psychiatrists, physiotherapists…'

The phone rang on the hall table, Dillon's voice floating from above ('An' if that's Jimmy, I'm not in.') as Susie snatched it up.

'Hello?' Susie listened, eyes growing bigger, then in a rush, 'Oh, yes, yes, he is, just hang on a second…' Head craning up the stairs, yelling excitedly, 'Frank, it's that friend of Mum's – he owns a building site… quick!'

Dillon cleared the banister rail and did a free-fall drop, arms parallel with his sides, to land at Susie's feet, springing lightly up and grabbing the phone. He coughed and said, 'Frank Dillon…' listening and nodding as Susie stuck both thumbs up. '…there's two of us, yeah.' He grinned then, nodding harder as if somebody had tightened his spring. '… Fantastic!'

Beaming a great big smile, Susie punched holes in the air, fists raised high. Yippee!

CHAPTER 6

The tinny blare of a transistor playing Radio One echoed round the building-site, some berk with a mid-atlantic accent and no sense of humour trying to crack jokes at seven-fifteen on a dismal grey Monday morning. The young bloke alongside Dillon in the cradle, twenty feet up, supposed to be – literally -'showing him the ropes', considered himself something of a joker too, and a patronising bastard into the bargain. Making clever cracks ever since Dillon and Steve had walked on the site at seven o'clock, bang on time.

'You okay?' he asked Dillon with a smirk as the cradle swayed and bumped against the side of the half-erected five-storey apartment block. Scaffolding poles rose above them, forming a skeletal framework nearly a hundred feet into the drizzly air.

Dillon watched as the ganger manipulated the ropes on his side of the cradle.

'Right, first you make a figure of eight like this… you know how to make a figure of eight?'

'Sure,' Dillon said. What did this prat take him for, a kid straight from school? Not much more than a kid himself.

'Right, you in the parachute regiment then, were you?' The ganger grinned, as if this was something funny in itself. The other building workers down below seemed to think so too, an appreciative audience with the ganger as comic, Dillon the stooge.

Keeping up a running commentary, he demonstrated, releasing the rope with his right hand, holding firm with the left. 'You let it run through nice and easy, from your left to your right, keep it slow for safety…'

Then gave a sly wink to the builders below, leaning on their shovels watching. 'You'll be used to this kind of thing, then' – suddenly letting go so that the cradle jolted and tilted to one side. If he was expecting a reaction from Dillon, he was disappointed. Not a flicker.

'Okay, you wanna have a go an' lower the other side?'

Dillon hauled himself up the sloping cradle, released the figure of eight, gripping the ropes tightly – then just as quickly let out double the drop, tilting the cradle even more steeply the other way.

The ganger slid cursing down the cradle, grabbing the rail to save himself. His flailing foot dislodged a half-full bag of cement which tipped over, sending a thick shower of cement dust swirling down directly on top of Steve, who fell to his knees, hands clutching his throat, a pitiful helpless figure like a caked snowman.

'Steve?' Dillon yelled down anxiously. 'You okay Steve?'

The ganger gave Dillon a venomous look and shouted down, 'Turn the hose on the stupid bugger!'

The other workmen whistled and cat-called as one of their mates let Steve have it full blast, knocking him flat so that he slithered around in the mire of wet cement, half-blinded, trying to protect his vulnerable throat as he gasped for breath.

'You bastard!' Dillon made a swipe at the ganger and shouted, 'Steve, get up here!' On his feet now, Steve was like a hunted man, backing away, shaking his head, unable to handle the fear and humiliation.

Dillon leaned right out, hanging on the ropes. 'On your feet, Harris – move it!'

This time it was an order, and Sergeant Dillon was giving it. The same voice that had whiplashed men up Mount Longdon, pushed them on through the pain-barrier of sub-zero temperatures and hostile terrain and the constant threat of sniper fire, and kept on pushing them to the limit of human endurance and beyond.

'I want you up on them shuffle bars, on those bars, you prat. I said move… you deaf? You deaf as well as dumb, Harris, are you?'

The ganger and the workmen gaped as Dillon used the ropes to swing himself from the cradle, and with amazing agility began to climb the fretwork of scaffolding until he was balanced, sixty feet off the ground, on two parallel bars above the well of the building. Every fledgling Para had to go through the ordeal of the high shuffle bars, a test of nerve, skill and overcoming the fear of heights to find out if he had the bottle to jump on command from a balloon or aircraft. Dillon had taken a thousand Joe Crows through it, showing by example that you could shuffle along on the soles of your boots, arms spread wide, touching your toes at the halfway point.

'Come on, you bastards, any takers?' Adrenalin pumping, enjoying the mental challenge, Dillon taunted the men far below. 'Any takers, come on! Show 'em, Steve, get up here…'

In stunned silence the workmen watched as Steve obeyed the order, clambering up through the well of the building to join Dillon, the pair of them facing each other, legs apart, balancing like trapeze artists, and both of them grinning like loons!

'Ready, Harris… Wait for it! Go – Go – Go – Go Goooooooohh!'

Steve was back in his element. Just like old times, him and the Sarge risking their fool necks. But a calculated risk all the same – calling for mental and physical coordination, daring, guts – because that's what you'd been trained to do and you took pride in doing it well. And that's what had been lacking, Steve knew full well: pride. He'd sunk lower in his own estimation than a snake's belly. He exulted in the chance to re-live it all, feeling suddenly re-energised with the joy of applying the old skills he'd almost forgotten he possessed, the exhilaration of flirting with danger…

It's me, Sarge, it's Harris… when the fireman grabs him, hang on to me… I'm right behind you!

Flames spurt from the side of the building as the ladder edges up, smoke billowing all around. Dillon inches out, Billy Newman draped across his back. The fireman reaches out across the gap, Dillon sliding one cautious foot after the other, knowing that when he transfers the weight he's going to overbalance. But Steve's there, Dillon's collar bunched in his fist, his other arm braced inside the shattered window-frame.

Watch yer balance when you get lift-off…

Voice calm and reassuring in the confusion of sirens, flames, screams, the stench of burning flesh.

Dillon nods to show he gets the message. Shouts to the fireman: Lift, on the count of three – One – two - three!

The wood buckles and splits under Dillon's feet, he teeters, hands clawing thin air, and falls, Steve hanging on for grim death, teeth gritted as he hauls the dangling Dillon back onto the ledge.

Steve grins, white teeth in a smoke-blackened face, green eyes twinkling as if he's damn-well enjoying this. Couple of Hail Marys, Frank, then I reckon we should get the hell outta here!

Bleeding understatement of the year. Mad bastard. And Steve keeps on grinning, even when Dillon gives him a whack for his pains.

What had happened on that terrible night had broken something inside Dillon; Susie sensed it but had never pressed him, knowing that sooner or later, in his own good time, Dillon would want to talk about it, unburden himself. Now was the time. Propped up on the pillows, she listened to the quiet, unemotional voice of her husband, the lamplight gilding his head and shoulders, making dark swirling patterns of the tattoos on his forearms and the paler skin of his biceps as he sat hunched on the side of the bed.

'It was all for nothin', as it turned out… the kid was dead. It was Barry Newman's son, that friend of Jimmy's.'

'So you feel you owe Steve -'

'No!' Dillon's tone was sharp. 'I owe nobody nothin'. We were all doing a job of work, no more, no less.' He stared into the darkness. 'It was a job.'

Susie was silent for a moment, then: 'What about the job you had today?'

'Didn't work out.' Dillon raised his head as a muffled thud came from Steve's room next door. He closed his eyes and sighed. 'Susie, I can't just dump him. I can't do that…'

She didn't need to be told. He was her husband, the father of her children, her lover, and she could feel his pain. She stroked his arm, leaning forward to nuzzle his cheek. Dillon gathered her in his arms and they slowly subsided onto the bed, their gentle lingering kiss becoming urgent, more intense. Dillon brought his hand up to cup her breast, Susie moving her body against his, needing to feel the hardness of his chest, the heat and passion of him.

Something thudded against the other side of the wall, a few feet away from where they lay, followed by the crash and tinkling of broken glass.

'Oh shit!' Dillon extricated himself and rolled off the bed. What in hell was the prat up to? He got to the door, holding up his hand as Susie raised herself. 'No, you stay put. I'll sort him!'

Too late anyway – the racket had woken the kids, little Phil bawling – and Susie went to see to them while Dillon pushed open Steve's door to find him sprawled half on the bed, half on the floor. The phone in the hallway started to ring as Dillon went in, checking his anger when he saw the bright red face shiny with sweat, the soundless gaping mouth, Steve's hand pulling feebly at his throat.

'What? What is it?'

Dillon was scared. An ominous gurgling rattle was coming from Steve, his face now beetroot red. He kept pointing at the bedside table. 'What is it?' Dillon asked again, lifting him upright. 'The filter blocked? Steve?

Amongst the clutter of personal belongings Dillon found a small plastic bag, and snatching it up he scanned the printed instructions. 'Okay, Steve, gonna be all right.' Dillon was very calm, his voice low and soothing. 'Now, tip your head back, just try to relax…'

Dillon's head rested almost against Steve's chin as he sucked out the blockage, spat it out, and re-inserted the tube. He then checked over Steve's so-called medical box, re-read all the instructions and, working patiently and methodically with the thin piece of fresh tubing, prepared clean gauze and adhesive tabs.

'Gonna fit a clean tube, okay?… Now get ready, get a good bellyful of air, and I'll fix it in place, you ready?… One – two – three – right, you're all set, I'm gonna do it now.'

Steve sucked in a lungful of air and flopped back on the pillow, growing quiet, his hair stuck to his forehead as he held his breath while Dillon worked inexpertly with the tube. His hands were steady, his face strained in concentration, eyes flicking to the instruction leaflet. Steve watched him and saw no sign of distaste, no gawping at the gaping hole in his throat, but that steady, hawk-eyed look as he carefully inserted the clean tube and placed the square of gauze across Steve's throat. He nodded proudly to Steve, as Steve breathed easier, giving a small wink to Dillon to show he was okay.

'You're gonna have to get this medical box shipshape, it's a mess.' Dillon sat on the edge of the bed, sorting through Steve's tin box. Steve reached out and gripped Dillon's hand, needing the physical contact to quell the fear that was still lurking in his eyes like a dark shadow.

Dillon pulled up a chair and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, speaking quietly in an easy, conversational tone that had the desired effect on Steve, relaxing him. 'We're gonna have to set up some kind of routine, so this doesn't happen again. Always check equipment, first rule – you know that, Steve. How many jumps you done, for chrissakes? Always check the equipment!'

'Thanks – mate.' Steve found a smile. 'Give us – a couple of – Hail Marys – will ya?'

Dillon grinned back. He glanced round as Susie inched the door open and put her head in. 'It was that Jimmy again, said he'll pick you up.'

Turning back, Dillon caught the disapproving look in Steve's eyes, more reproaching than accusing, but it still pissed Dillon off.

'Lay off me,' he warned. 'Everybody's on me!'

Susie glared at Dillon's back. 'I was just passing on his message!' she snapped and banged the door shut.

Steve looked at Dillon, and Dillon returned it, square in the eyes.

'If it's bent, I walk away,' he said.

CHAPTER 7

Jimmy went in first, then ushered Dillon into Newman's rabbit-hutch of an office above a clothing shop in Leather Lane, just off Hatton Garden. In contrast to the dingy surroundings, Newman was his usual immaculate self, a royal-blue tie and matching handkerchief adding an acceptable touch of flamboyant flair to his neatly groomed appearance and dark business suit. He didn't offer to shake hands, and for an empty moment Dillon just stood there in front of Newman's desk, self-conscious in his rumpled tracksuit and battered Puma trainers, pushing a hand through his still-damp hair. 'Hello, Barry.'

Newman watched him through half-closed eyes, and it was left to Jimmy to break the permafrost, telling Newman with a grin, 'Grabbed him off the track.'

As Newman could see, and probably smell, for himself, stroking his grey moustache with a manicured fingernail. He gestured to the swarthy man, five o'clock shadow and receding hairline, leaning against the filing cabinet, who came instantly to life. 'Get him a decent suit, on the firm.'

Dillon hesitated. He glanced at Jimmy, who gave him a quick wink, and only then reluctantly followed the swarthy man out.

Newman waited until the door closed behind them.

'How much does he know?'

'Nothin' but he needs cash,' Jimmy said.

'Okay. Let's get down to business.' From a drawer Newman took a black velvet bag and placed it on the desk. 'You carry them to this address,' unfolding a slip of paper. 'Come back to me with the cash.'

The cheap off-the-peg suit chafed him, but Dillon didn't dare scratch where it itched, anyway not in a public place. Newman's largesse had run to the suit, check shirt and polyester tie, but not to shoes, so he still wore his Pumas, which he was glad about. Doing a job for Barry Newman gave him the edgy feeling that at any moment he might have to leg it.

Like right now, on the northbound platform of the Piccadilly line at Holborn, waiting for Jimmy to make up his frigging mind which train to catch. They'd let two go – for no apparent reason that Dillon could see – and it was making him nervous.

'So far so good.' Jimmy did a recce of the scattering of people on the platform. He tilted his head, mouth almost touching Dillon's ear. 'How does it feel to have half-a-million against your inside leg?'

'If you really want to know,' Dillon ground out, a mist of perspiration on his forehead, 'I'd prefer the firing squad. I mean, why all the skivin' around if this is legit?'

'Insurance – to cover the insurance of these babies costs an arm and a leg!'

A rumble, a cascade of sparks, and a warm wind blew in their faces.

'We on this one, or trying for the next?' Dillon asked tensely, feeling like a walk-on in Godfather III.

At King's Cross they came up the escalator to the mainline station and walked briskly across the marble-slabbed concourse to a side exit leading to the warren of back streets fanning out eastwards to the Caledonian Road. Dillon didn't know the area all that well, but Jimmy seemed to, and eventually, as they came into yet another indistinguishable street, he nodded and said, This is it.'

A door with a tarnished brass nameplate and creaking hinges led them into a wooden passage that smelled of dust and mildew, and up a narrow staircase that doubled back on itself. Jimmy rapped lightly and after the sound of locks and bolts, a door opened a cautious three inches, held by a heavy chain. A pair of pouchy eyes appeared in the gap.

'This is Frank, Morris -' Jimmy motioned Dillon forward, to be scrutinised – he's a friend of mine, okay? Just the two of us.'

They sidled in, following Morris's shambling bulk into a tiny workshop that was sweltering to death from a Calor gas stove, the single grimy window screwed up tight. A youth with lank greasy hair parted in the middle sat on a high stool picking his nose, pin-prick eyes impassive as Dillon unfastened his belt and lowered his trousers, releasing the leather carrying pouch strapped to his waist and dropping it on the workbench. Morris switched on a powerful desk spotlight, swung a magnifying lens on a bracket into position. With long slender fingers he extracted the velvet bag from the pouch and tipped it out. Dillon felt his mouth go dry as the stones tumbled out, mesmerised, dazzled, the diamonds like a heap of white-hot embers flashing sparks on the blue velvet pad in the stifling, airless room. He ran a finger inside his collar. Couldn't take his eyes off Morris, who set to work, closely examining each stone through the lens, then weighing it, making a notation in a ledger, setting it aside and taking up the next.

'We on the move?' Dillon whispered to Jimmy as Morris, task done, funnelled the stones into the velvet bag, pulling the drawstring tight.

'Yep. I'll wear them now, just in case.' Jimmy dropped his pants.

Fine by me, Dillon thought. The more he saw of this set-up, the less he liked it. Taking risks for Barry Newman, he must be out of his tiny skull, with brains to match.

Back on the street, walking quickly, Dillon glanced behind. The young lad from the workshop was following them, keeping up the same brisk pace. 'What's with the kid?'

'So we don't switch stones,' Jimmy explained. 'An' he knows which apartment, I'm not sure.' He called back, 'Eh, kid. Is it much further?'

'Two minutes now.' The youth jerked his head, indicating a large block of flats, stained concrete and tiny balconies fronted by corroding ironwork, an architectural gem with a grandstand view of the gasworks. 'Better follow me in,' the youth said, and scuttled on ahead, the wind whipping up his hair like bits of dead grass.

'Money for jam this, I told you,' Jimmy chortled as they went in through a pair of glass-panelled doors, one of them boarded up with plywood. 'But keep your eyes peeled. Anyone gonna clobber us, this place is perfect. What a dump!'

The thought stayed with Dillon as they followed the youth along a dim corridor and turned a corner, arriving in a cul-de-sac at what appeared to be the porter's flat, judging by the spyhole in the centre of the door. Standing in plain view, the youth knocked, and then stood aside to let Dillon and Jimmy enter as bars slid back and chains rattled. A big, bearded man in a fawn polo-neck with a beer gut he'd been nurturing for some time did a rapid, expert frisking job. From Jimmy he took a portable phone, a neat little folding item in black and silver, and placed it on a side table. He went on down the passage, tapped on a door, pushed it wide, waving Dillon through.

As Jimmy went by, the man barred his way, and very lightly brushed the small of his back. Raising both hands, Jimmy smiled and gave a little shrug. 'Just for protection.'

Unimpressed, the man nodded, reached under Jimmy's jacket and removed the Browning 140-DA semi-automatic, dropping it in his pocket.

Dillon was fidgeting by the door when Jimmy came in. The small room smelled of stale whisky and even staler sweat, and the wheezing thick-set man in the shabby suit, brown Hush Puppies and black shades, standing at the open safe in the corner, neatly rounded off Dillon's stock memory of a British B movie circa 1953. He felt lost, out of his depth, and besides, Dillon thought moodily, this was Jimmy's picnic. Let him get on with it.

A silent ritual took place. Jimmy fetched up the velvet bag, held onto it until the man in shades had transferred several thick bundles of notes from safe to table, fifties and twenties. The man spread the diamonds on a velvet cloth, wheezing whisky fumes as he bent over to examine them. Jimmy flicked through the bundles, a quick rough tally, but enough to satisfy him. Confident, done it before. No sweat. He straightened up, opening the front of his jacket and unbuttoning his shirt. 'You got the belts for us?'

Two black money-belts were produced. Jimmy stashed the notes away in the zippered pockets, handed one of the belts to Dillon, who wrapped it round his waist, securing it with velcro fasteners. When they'd finished, Jimmy said to the man in shades, 'Kid stays put until we're out of here, okay?'

The man nodded, pointed to a chair. The kid sat, picking his nose.

Dillon waited until they were clear, had put a corner between them and the concrete block. 'You think I'm blind?' Jimmy gave him a guarded, puzzled look. 'You're carrying, aren't you?' Dillon blazed, the tension erupting out of him, making his neck muscles bulge. He pushed Jimmy roughly. 'Aren't you!'

'I got a licence, Frank – it's okay!'

Fists clenched, Dillon walked off. He stopped and turned, nostrils twitching. 'Where do we go now? Come on, what's next?'

Jimmy took out the portable phone, pressed numbers as they walked back in the direction of King's Cross. Jesus Christ Almighty, Dillon was thinking, I must have fucking scrambled eggs for brains. Walking down some poxy back-street with fifty grand, a hundred grand – he didn't know how much and he didn't care – strapped to him, talk about a soft target…

'Everythin' watertight this end,' Jimmy was murmuring low into the phone. 'We're on our way back to base -' He listened, brow furrowing. 'What?'

Forward, sideways, back, Dillon was doing slow sweeps, wishing he had eyes in the back of his head. There was a bloke, forty, fifty yards behind, red anorak, pasty-faced, who might be out for a stroll, or going to the shop for fags, but Dillon had his doubts.

'Well what you want us to do with it?' Jimmy's voice rose half an octave and he brought it down. 'Strapped round our waists, where you think?' He glanced meaningfully at Dillon. 'Wants us to hang onto it!'

'You're bloody joking – you tell him we're coming in. I've had enough.' Dillon grabbed the phone. 'We're not wanderin' around friggin' London with… hello?… hello?'

Dillon thrust the phone back, eyes swivelling over Jimmy's shoulder. 'I think we've got a tail on us. Guy in a red anorak, see if he's still with us…'

Jimmy sneaked a look, a quick nod at Dillon. They kept on walking, picking up speed but trying not to show they'd rumbled him. The street they were in branched into another, running parallel with the lines that went into King's Cross. As they neared it, Dillon said, 'He's still behind us, an' he's still on his tod. What you think? Next corner? Make a run for it!'

'Okay. Soon as we hit the bend, next left, do a runner, split up. See you at King's Cross taxi-rank…'

The instant they turned the corner it was heads down, diving into a sprint, running like crazy; they'd covered all of thirty yards before either of them realised. Dillon skidded to a stop, staring at the high brick wall topped with broken glass, blocking off the street.

'Shit! You don't even know where we are! You prat! It's a dead end… it's a dead end!'

They whipped round, but it was too late. Red Anorak had turned the corner and was coming towards them.

Jimmy said, 'We're gonna have to take him -'

Before Dillon could say anything he was charging back, running like the clappers. Red Anorak stopped, started to turn and run, but Jimmy was fit and fast, on top of him like a ton of bricks, bringing him down with a flying tackle. The man's head bounced on the pavement, and before he'd rolled into the gutter Jimmy was up and at him, putting the boot in.

'For chrissakes, take it easy,' Dillon panted, coming up as Jimmy delivered another kick, seeing blood pouring from the man's gashed head.

'You see anyone else?' Jimmy's eyes were rolling in his sweating face. 'Go on, get to the corner, see if he's got anyone else with him – hurry. Move it!'

Dillon ran off. Jimmy ferreted inside the anorak, found a wallet and flipped it open. 'Oh shit!'

Encapsulated in a 4 x 3 inch plastic slip cover, a colour print of the man's ruddy face and ginger moustache. Above it, his name, rank and number: D.C.I. RIGGS.

'Come on,' Dillon hissed, racing back. 'What you waiting for?'

Shielding it with his body, Jimmy snapped the wallet shut and slipped it into his pocket.

CHAPTER 8

Dillon nearly lost all his shirt-buttons getting the money-belt off. 'Here, take it – I never want to see that bastard Newman again!' He thrust it into Jimmy's lap, sitting alongside him in the back of the taxi parked on the hard shoulder of the Shepherd's Bush flyover. Two close calls in one afternoon, and he was sick of it. First Red Anorak, then evading the cops literally by seconds, ducking into a cab at King's Cross as squad cars came zooming in from all directions.

Dillon wiped his damp palms on his trouser knees. 'I lost half-a-stone sweatin' what would have happened if we got rapped over the head an' lost it.'

He jerked round, staring out into the gathering darkness as a police car, lights flashing, siren wailing, appeared over the flyover behind them and shot past towards the main roundabout. They watched it vanish towards White City. Dillon flopped back, limp as a wrung-out dish-rag.

'Come on, it's okay. So we had a bit of aggro,' Jimmy admitted, pulling the money-belt free and folding it with the other. His old cocky bravado was back, as if being chased by the police was all in a day's work, which probably wasn't far from the truth, Dillon was starting to realise.

The cab driver was looking over his shoulder and Jimmy rattled his knuckles on the sliding window. 'Oi! Keep your face to the front. What you think we are, couple of woofters? We're waitin' for a pick-up.'

A mite pissed off himself, the driver slid the panel open, beaked nose and bristly chin outlined in the green dashboard lights.

'I don't give a shit what you do, but parkin' here is illegal. Pay the fare – you wanna wait, that's your business! I can get fired for parkin' here.'

Dillon nodded curtly at the money-belts Jimmy was holding. 'Pay him, Jimmy. Sure as hell got enough dough!'

Jimmy peered out, banging the window with his fist. 'Where the hell is he?'

'How long does he expect us to wait?' asked Dillon, getting jittery all over again. 'You think we aren't drawing attention to us now, parked here?' He grabbed the door handle. 'Next thing a bloody cop car'll stop… I'm out of here!'

'Wait!' Jimmy pulled Dillon back, face pale and twitching. The last time Dillon had seen him so hyped up was standing in the open doorway of a Hercules C-130, line rigged up, cheeks rippling like a rubber mask in the slipstream, ready to jump. 'That guy I whacked,' Jimmy said. 'He was a police officer.'

Dillon slowly blinked at him, unable to take it in. Assaulting a copper and he'd been accessory to it. They were talking prison here.

The cabbie's patience finally worn though, he stuck his head in, telling them straight, 'You think I'm stupid? I've given you the warnin', now I'm gonna call the law!'

Without a second's hesitation Jimmy viciously slammed the panel shut against the cabbie's face, and in a fury started stuffing fivers in the gasping mouth. 'Here's your soddin' money… I know your cab number,' he was shouting, 'I know your name!'

The driver dragged his face free, groping for the security lock button. Jimmy reached through, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and yanked his head back hard against the glass panel. 'Try anythin', Jimmy snarled, 'and I swear before God you're fuckin' dead.' Again he yanked the driver's head back – clunk - against the panel, and once more to make sure the idea had sunk in.

Scooping up the money-belts Jimmy slammed the door shut and shouted after Dillon, walking head forward along the hard shoulder with the look of a man who's had it up to here.

'Frank, where you going?' Jimmy broke into a trot. He looked up to see the Jaguar coasting down to the roundabout, signalling to make a left. 'Frank! He's here!'

Dillon swung an angry face towards him, aiming along his pointing finger. 'I've had enough for one night, Jimmy, an' don't try an' tell me this is all legit! It reeks, it stinks. It's got nothin' to do with insurance an' you know it! I just got into civvies, an' I don't intend going to jail for you – or that bastard Newman!' He marched on, yelling over his shoulder, 'I got a wife, I got kids… I don't need it!'

'Frank, listen to me -'

'I'll make it, Jimmy,' Dillon shouted, marching on, his voice becoming fainter, echoing under the sodium-yellow streetlights. 'You do whatever you want, just stay clear of me!'

Jimmy tried to shout, but nothing came out, his throat choked tight. The last thing he wanted was to alienate Frank Dillon, his best mate in all the world. Frank knew Jimmy, possibly better than anyone else. There was no one else. He saw Dillon moving away over the frozen tundra, pale Antarctic sunlight slanting down, his figure silhouetted against the blue wash of sky. That day they'd tabbed fourteen miles with thirty-eight kilograms of kit – L1A1 weapon, thirty-round magazine, fighting order, bergen stuffed with ammo and emergency rations – sneaking up the enemy's backside after a march the Argies thought humanly impossible. Dillon had set the example, and Dillon wasn't a man you let down, not if you wanted his respect. Worth more than rubies, and he was throwing it away for two money-belts of soiled notes. 'Frank… Frank, I'm sorry,' Jimmy whispered.

'Sorry about the wait, but the filth were crawling round my place, Newman said, placing the money-belts inside his pigskin briefcase and snapping it shut. He inclined his head towards Jimmy, sitting subdued in a corner of the back seat. 'Frank all right, is he?'

'Yeah. Just needed some fresh air.' Staring without seeing anything, blur of lights, smeared faces.

Newman held out two thick bundles secured with rubber bands.

'This is your cut, and you both get a bonus. Three grand!' Newman permitted himself a faint smug smile. 'Glad Frank worked out, but then I knew he'd come round. Everyone's got a price.'

'You can't buy Frank Dillon,' Jimmy said quietly, his chest so full he hardly had the breath. Then softer yet: 'I'm the type you can buy, Mr Newman…'

The Jaguar sped on, Jimmy stared bleakly out.

He was in luck. Dillon was mooching across the paved courtyard, hands in his pockets, just as the taxi turned the corner. Jimmy hopped out, told the driver to wait, and intercepted Dillon at the bottom of the stairs. 'Here's your cut!' The grin was back, but not quite sure of itself. 'An' we got a bonus!' Jimmy handed over the thick wad, keeping his back to the cab driver.

'How much?'

'Three grand – not bad for one night's work, eh?'

Dillon's surly expression faded as he gazed wonderingly at the money in his hand. 'What – each? You kiddin' me?'

'Naaahh!' Jimmy slapped Dillon on the arm. 'Look, I gotta go, Frank, be in touch soon, yeah?'

Dillon looked him in the eyes. 'You sure, Jimmy… no strings?'

'No strings, Frank.' Jimmy ducked his head, turned away. 'Night.'

'G'night you thievin' bastard!' said Dillon, cuffing him. 'I'm sorry I sounded off on you… don't get in too deep, Jimmy.'

Jimmy looked back. 'Steve Harris still dossin' down at your place?' he asked quietly.

'He's got no place else to go.'

'He'll bleed you dry, Frank.' Bitterness there, even a tinge of envy maybe. 'His kind always do.'

'He doesn't lie to me, Jimmy.' Dillon's voice had icicles on it. 'I trust old Steve, an' I'll get him back on his feet.' He went up the stairs, footsteps ringing out on the concrete.

Jimmy nodded to himself, listening as the footsteps faded, knowing Dillon meant every word. He said to the empty stairwell, 'What about me, Frank? What about me?'

Susie was mending the kids' shirts when Dillon walked in, snipping frayed cuffs, binding them with strips of cotton she'd bought down the market. There was soccer on the telly, but the sound was off, vividly coloured doll-like figures darting about on smooth emerald-green baize, chasing four shadows at once. She said, 'Where've you been?'

'Ran into a pal of Jimmy's, did a bit of collectin'.'

Dillon looked at the screen, at the carpet, at the ceiling fixture, and turned to go.

'Buy you the suit, did he?' Susie carried on sewing.

'What?' Dillon fingered the lapel as if seeing the suit for the first time. 'Oh… yeah.' He turned again.

'What's the matter, Frank?'

Dillon slowly faced her, tugging at his moustache, eyes on the screen. He said quietly, 'It's not going to work.'

'What isn't?' The words like twin pistol shots.

'Civvies.' Dillon cleared his throat. 'I'm signing on for mercenary duty…'

'You can't do that to me – the kids.' She'd started to flush up, eyes bright and stony. 'The whole point of you leaving the Army was so you could be with us.'

'But if I can't get a job…'

'You telling me with eighteen years' experience training men they can't help you?' Susie said, incredulity straining her voice.

'Who's they? Eh? Go on, tell me!' As if she had touched a raw nerve in him, the bottled-up resentment and bitterness spilling out. 'I was in the Army, now I'm out of it. That's it. And if you want the truth – I didn't leave for you or the kids.'

'What?' Susie mouthed, stunned.

'We used to pride ourselves we were the toughest, the best fighting men, but they want to change it all, change our image. It was my life, my lads… but I got as far as I could go, as far as they'd let someone like me go.' Dillon stood there in the cheap, wrinkled suit and battered Puma trainers, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides, the thin line of the scar a whiter shade of pale on his cheek.

'Yes-men, that's what they want. Yes-men. They don't want soldiers, they want blokes with good education.' He gazed off somewhere, suddenly very still, far away. 'The Falklands was the best time in my life. Everything I'd been trained for came together. It was the same for all of us – everything I was made sense.'

'And it doesn't now?' Susie asked quietly, getting up. Emotions that frightened her were chasing themselves across his face. She reached out to hold him, comfort him, and Dillon backed away, the cords in his neck standing out.

'Frank, please, I'm trying to understand – don't get angry. Talk to me, help me… the Falklands was a long time ago, I know you wanted to go to the Gulf -'

Dillon pushed past her, slamming open the sideboard cupboard to get a bottle of Famous Grouse and a glass, poured out a large measure. 'For your information, there's still a war going on in Ireland,' he said, scathing, as if talking to a cretin, his face ugly and twisted. He took a huge gulp and yelled, 'Steve… Steve! Get down here!'

Susie walked out – very nearly. At the door she turned back, gave it another try. He was her husband, she loved him, he deserved that much at least. 'I knew it wouldn't be easy, Frank, but…' she hesitated, 'the bills have to be paid, and I've been thinking – with the kids at school now – I could get work.'

Dillon's knuckles showed white on the hand holding the glass, the scotch jumping and splashing his fingers. He barked hoarsely, 'I can provide for my wife and kids!' Black rage seeping out of his pores, making his eyes hot.

'I don't want to be provided for with a dead man's pension,' Susie told him calmly.

Dillon swung round, his face so tortured and strange she feared for her safety. As if, without a single qualm, he could have smashed the bottle and gouged her eyes out with the jagged edges.

'Steve!… STEVE!'

Steve burst in. He only needed one look at Dillon. He gripped Susie and bundled her roughly out of the room and before she could open her mouth slammed the door in her face. Susie furiously gripped the handle, ready to storm back in, freezing as she heard the splintering crash of the bottle and glass being flung to the floor. Another crash, more glass breaking, and then came a high-pitched whinnying laugh that chilled the blood in her veins. She stood, unmoving, staring at the door, listening.

'I'm going crazy, I'm going crazy… For chrissakes I'm dying… Don't let them bury me here… ' That awful weird, whinnying laugh again. 'All night he screamed "Help me, I'm dying, I'm wet, my chest is bleeding"…'

'No – he said his – heart – was bleeding.'

Tears streamed down Susie's face. Turning, she slowly began to mount the stairs, then paused on the third step at the sound of her husband's sobbing. Wiping her eyes with the heel of her hand, Susie went back down and opened the door. Shards of glass littered the carpet. Over in the corner the toppled lamp standard lay broken, it's flowered shade bent and torn, and in the dim glow of the vari-flame gas-fire she saw Dillon and Steve crouched together on the sofa, arms around each other's shoulders.

Suddenly aware of her, Dillon seemed to cringe away, hiding his wet face.

Very softly, Susie murmured, 'Turn the fire off when you come to bed, Frank… Goodnight Steve.'

Steve looked at Susie, and gave her a kind of tentative half smile. Then a small wink. It was then, in that moment, that she knew – for the first time realised the truth. That it wasn't Steve who needed Frank. She'd got it totally, completely wrong. It was Frank who needed Steve. Needed this boy with the shattered throat to help him heal his own wounds. Frank's were different from Steve's, his were inside, raw and open, he needed Steve to heal them, and Susie would simply have to wait, he hadn't really come back to Civvies, yet.

Susie silently closed the door and went to bed. She lay curled up, waiting for him, hearing laughter from below, hearing the muffled sounds making it impossible for her to sleep. She tossed and turned, and hours later heard the thud-thud of them both coming up the stairs, heard through the thin wall Frank making sure Steve's filter was cleared, the strange, garbled interaction that she still found difficult to understand, yet Frank was able to carry on long conversations with Steve, as if he were so in tune with his gasping burped sentences there appeared nothing unusual, and the truth was, she had witnessed with her own eyes Steve's transformation. His confidence was growing stronger every day, whereas Frank seemed more and more unsure of himself.

At last Susie heard the click-click of lights being turned out, of toilet flushing and still she waited, waited for her husband to come to bed. Eventually, she got up and crept from her bedroom. Standing on the landing she caught sight of Dillon in their kids' bedroom, standing staring at the old Habitat felt board with all his photographs pinned up. She hesitated, and then inched open the bedroom door.

'It's very late Frank', she whispered.

He nodded his head, and then turned slowly towards her, he seemed so vulnerable, so at a loss. She reached out and took his hand, and he allowed himself to be drawn from his sons' bedroom into his own. She helped him undress and then folded away his clothes as he slipped into their bed, wearing just his jockey shorts. He lay back on the pillows, and she got in beside him and snuggled close, not too close, she was content with just being near him, feeling his body heat. Everything inside her wanted him to reach out, hook his arm around her and draw her even closer, but he remained distant, staring up at the ceiling.

'Steve is gonna be okay,' he whispered.

'Yes, yes I think he is…' Susie didn't say what was in her mind or ask all the questions she wanted to ask, she knew intuitively that he meant that he was going to be all right. She could wait, she had got used to it over the years, and she loved her husband deeply. It was Susie's understanding that had kept their marriage steady, when many of their friends' had fallen apart, and, as if he knew it, Dillon drew her to him, easing his arm around her, pressing his hand in the small of her back until she was cradled beside him. He was maybe unaware of the impact this simple gesture meant to Susie, he had always done it and she had never been able to describe to anyone what it meant to her. She could never, or would never, make the first approach to him, it was not in her nature, but when he reached out and drew her close to him, it was, to Susie, like a great warrior claiming his woman. She liked that, liked his domination of her, and trusted him totally, not only to take care of her, but of their sons.

'I am so proud of you,' she whispered.

He looked down at her, the scar etched in his face, white and translucent in the darkness, and then he smiled… and he was no great warrior, no sergeant, he was the man she had fallen in love with, and when he gave her that sweet gentle smile, seen so rarely, but a smile that altered his entire face, she felt for the first time he had come home.

Rifles held aloft, grinning through blackened faces. A pair of boots, steaming gently, inscription: 'Wally's Boots!' An Argie with half his face missing, the other eye hanging on his cheek. Steve clowning around, draped in a Union Jack. A gang of them in the NAAFI canteen at Port Stanley, toasting the camera with fifteen Budweisers. The enemy dead, stacked three deep. Dillon, Harry Travers and Jimmy Hammond on their haunches, raw-eyed, bone-weary, a soiled dressing above Dillon's right eye. Four or five of them grouped round a subaltern (an anonymous hand sticking up behind giving the vee-sign). Three shivering Argie prisoners, smiling scared at the camera, waving. Drunken Taffy pissing in the snow, writing his name.

Steve tapped this last one, shoulders shaking, the jerky wheezing breath that passed for his laugh puttering out of his gaping mouth. He wiped his eyes. Dillon, grinning, turned a page, and this set Steve off again. He'd had it, helpless, wiped out. He pointed at the photograph in Dillon's album, tears dripping off his chin.

Dillon straightened up, stuck his nose in the air, and did a perfect officer's accent, braying, 'What -? What did you say, Harris?'

Dillon put his hands to his ears, miming headphones, and did Steve's part. 'Tank. It's a tank, sir! Tank.'

Officer: 'Where's the bloody tank, man?' Neck straining forward, peering through binoculars. 'Tent you blitherin' idiot! TENT. That's a ruddy tent on the beach, not a tank!'

Dillon broke off, chest heaving, and the laughter swept through him sweetly, and once he'd started he couldn't stop. He fell back into the sofa, legs splayed and quivering, head flung back, shouting out his laughter.

Steve, growing quieter now, sat and watched him, eyes shining with tears of utter devotion and love.