Civvies

CHAPTER 29

They were standing in a row, like statues. All three wore new grey suits, peaked chauffeurs' caps of the same grey material tucked under the left arm, shiny black shoes. Completing the ensemble, crisp white shirts and the Regimental maroon tie patterned with the winged parachute motif in dark blue. Behind them, in vee-formation, a gleaming silver Mercedes stretch limo with tinted windows and the metallic-gold Granada, polished to within an inch of its life, sporting a new radio antenna. And behind these, square on, the resprayed and refurbished wagon with a new set of wheels, new windscreen, and emblazoned on its side panel, STAG SECURITY COMPANY, in the Para colours of maroon and dark blue.

Across the yard, Fernie in his baggy, greasy overalls leaned against the workshop doors, arms folded, looking on. Last month, he reflected, these geezers had to cadge twenty quid off him for gas. Now they were done up like a dog's dinner, with their own transport fleet fitted out with cellular radio links. Funny old world.

Harry's neck chafed inside his size-fourteen collar. He had an itch just below the privates department where the suit material was rubbing him. His bloody feet hurt too, cramped inside the stiff new shoes. From the side of his mouth he muttered at Dillon, 'How much longer is he gonna be!'

'Shut it,' Dillon said, turning his head just as the flash went off.

The photographer looked up from the tripod camera, a pained expression on his face. 'Can you hold your positions, please!'

All three looked to the front, legs slightly apart, hands clasped in front of them, motionless as zombies. The camera flashed three time and the ordeal was over. 'Okay, that's it… thanks very much.'

Susie opened the flaps of the cardboard box, took out wine glasses four at a time and lined them up on top of the new dish-washer. Helen was at the kitchen table, unwrapping cling film from plates of sandwiches, pork pies, sausage rolls and Marks & Spencer quiches. Harry was sorting out the beer. He'd wedged the eight-gallon aluminium cask on the draining-board and was screwing in the brass tap. One of Harry's mates, Tony Taylor, humped in a crate each of Newcastle Brown and Czech Budweiser, stacked them next to the Hotpoint tumble-dryer which still had the Rumbelow's label, and the guarantee card in a clear plastic sleeve, stuck to its side. From the living-room came raucous bursts of music – a snatch of Tina Turner, rasping Little Richard, Donna Summer on heat – as Cliff got the stereo system set up. Several other anonymous bodies that Susie didn't know from Adam wandered in and out, bringing in more crates, bottles of Thunderbird, six-packs of exotic foreign beers. My God, she thought, they had enough booze to float the Titanic.

The guests had already started arriving. Every few seconds the doorbell would go, laughter and loud voices as newcomers spilled into the hallway. Somebody must have been answering the door, though Susie hadn't a clue who. She heard Cliff yelling, 'One speaker's not workin'… hang on,' and by Christ it suddenly was, as Eddie Cochran's Twenty Flight Rock nearly ruptured her eardrums. Above it Harry bellowed, 'Somebody answer the door!' as the doorbell drilled away in the background. Susie glanced across at Helen, slicing ham and mushroom quiche into quadrants, mother and daughter exchanging looks of alarm and foreboding… and the party hadn't even started!

Wearing a broad pleased smirk, Dillon was standing next to the microwave, several folded newspapers under his arm, one held open at arm's length. He was telling Wally with smug pride, 'I'm gonna have this framed – good publicity. Get the stack sent to the barracks, wait till they see this!'

Wally put his mouth close to Dillon's ear, yet still had to raise his voice above the bustle, the music, the ceaseless doorbell.

'Hey, Frank! I got some info. Important. Those two bastards your lads were after, word is -'

'Not now, Wally, eh?' Dillon held the paper up. 'You seen this, second page? Merc… looks good, very impressive, eh…?'

'I told Harry,' persisted Wally, 'it's a reliable tip-off. Those bastards are here, Frank, in London.' He looked to Harry, who was wiping his hands on the tea towel, and Harry returned a slow, conspiratorial wink. But Dillon wasn't in the mood to listen; with an edgy, abrupt movement he folded the newspaper and slid it onto a shelf with the others.

'Not tonight, Wally,' he said. 'This is a celebration.'

Harry gestured around with his thumb, 'Now's the time, Frank, with all the fads arrivin' -' And just then, to add weight to it, the doorbell went again. 'We can get a dozen -'

'Leave it out,' said Dillon shortly, and turned away to grab himself a bottle of Czech Budweiser.

'My God, we've got enough food for an army!' Helen exclaimed, surveying the laden table.

'You might just be seein' one,' Dillon grinned, his high spirits soon back, 'the lads from the caterin' corps did all this. Have you seen the paper?' He knew damn well she had but he wanted to chalk one up, gloat a little.

'Well, I hope to God they like pork pies, or we'll be eatin' them for months.' Helen was having trouble finding fault, and the best she could manage was a tart, 'You're wearin' your eyes out lookin' at that newspaper…' But all she got from Dillon was another broad grin.

Harry clapped his hands. 'Right, I done my share, I got to go an' pick up Trudie.' He went out, cuffing Wally on his bald head, who was handing bottles from the crate to Dillon, who in turn was lining them up next to the cask on the draining-board.

'Tell everyone, coats upstairs,' Dillon called after him, the doorbell competing now with Chuck Berry who had no particular place to go. Dillon frowned at Wally. 'Trudie?'

'She's the manageress from the travel agency.' Wally's eyes rolled. 'An' she's bringin' a few of her friends…'

Dillon nearly said something, but Susie was at his elbow, bottle of red, bottle of white, in either hand. 'Frank, you should answer the door!' she reprimanded him, anxious to keep up the proprieties.

Dillon kissed the tip of her nose and meekly did as he was told.

By nine-thirty the place was jumping. Susie reckoned they had half the battalion there, plus wives, girlfriends and assorted hangers-on. Some of the men she knew by sight, from the early days in married quarters when Dillon was based at Montgomery Lines, as the barracks were known. But most of the faces were young and strange, Toms who'd joined since the Falklands and come to know Dillon as their Sergeant PJI, Parachute Jumping Instructor, during their three-week Basic Para training at Brize Norton

Clutching a glass of wine, Susie squirmed through into the living-room. She hoped the neighbours wouldn't complain. The stereo seemed to be permanently at top whack, even though every time she went by she tweaked it down – obviously somebody immediately tweaked it up. Above the heat and noise and swirling cigarette smoke, Kenny and Phil peered through the banister rails, huddled together to make room for the constant flow of people traipsing up to the bathroom. Helen was standing on the bottom step, pointing a stern finger.

'Bed you two – you've been told twice! Now come on…'

Susie stepped over somebody's legs, got bumped in the rear by a jiving girl, and steadying her glass called up, 'Do as you're told, you two! You got a drink, Mum?'

Helen pushed the boys ahead of her. She leaned over the banister, face like a thundercloud. 'I want a word with you! Come up, come on!'

On the landing, having got the boys inside, Helen kept her hand on the doorknob, holding the door shut. She turned to her daughter with wide, outraged eyes. 'There's four women down there,' Helen hissed, 'an' if you don't know what they are, then -'

Susie half-closed her eyes. 'Mum, just don't start… they're celebratin'. I dunno who half these people are.'

'Tarts,' Helen said in a furious whisper. 'You got tarts down there! Never mind half a ton of pork pies…'

And when Susie couldn't help it, burst out laughing, Helen did her Mrs Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells act and flounced into the bedroom and slammed the door. A tall, slender black girl came out of the bathroom. She gave Susie a bright smile. 'Hello, I've not been introduced, but I'm Shirley, Cliff's fiancee.'

Susie said hello and they went down together to join the fray. Fifties rock 'n' roll was in favour at the moment, Elvis in his prime, never as good again, with My Baby Left Me, Bill Black's thudding bass making the backbone shudder.

The two women eventually made it past the whirling bodies into the kitchen. A dozen or so ex-Paras had done a flanking move and set up base camp around the beer keg. In the middle of them was Harry, foaming pint in one hand, the other clamped to the ample waist of a blonde woman who was more than well endowed everywhere else. She clanked with jewellery, from earrings in the shape of swinging dragons down to a gold anklet laden with chunky gold star-sign charms. Probably a social worker, Susie decided charitably, which wasn't far wide of the mark.

In expansive mode, Harry was giving with the gab to some of the younger blokes. 'We got an armour-plated security wagon. We got a stretch Merc used to belong to some Iranian, Ford Granada an' – he took a swallow, sucked his moustache ' – suite of offices. You need a job mate -' belch ' – give us a call.'

Wally flagged Dillon over, draped his arm matily around Dillon's shoulder. 'Hey Frank, you met Kenny Hill, he was in the Gulf, he's just got out… any chance of him joinin'?'

Fishing in the breast pocket of his shirt for a card he didn't have on him, and was too pissed to find if he had, Dillon said grandly, 'Give me a bell – you got one of our cards?' He pulled away from Wally and did a Wagons Roll wave of the arm. 'Come on, lads, move into the other room… in - the – other - room -!'

As the group began to move, Cliff was excitedly telling them. 'We went into the bank manager, showed him our references. We got the loan an' we got more business than we can handle!'

Helen came through, manoeuvring past them with two handfuls of dirty plates and glasses. Susie was pouring a glass of wine for Shirley. Helen stacked the plates in the dish-washer and put the upturned tumblers and wine glasses in the top tray. 'Go for one of these, love,' she advised Shirley. 'They don't half make the glasses sparkle.'

Shirley took the wine from Susie. 'It was a toss-up whether I got one of these or a microwave,' she said, big brown eyes everywhere, taking everything in. She spotted Cliff just inside the living-room door, and at the third shout, because the music was blasting out, he got the message and came over.

'They got a new washing machine, tumble-dryer, dishwashing machine, an' a fridge.' Practically the same height as Cliff, Shirley looked at him, quizzical, and nudged him with her elbow. 'So you tell me, how much you been given?'

Cliff touched a finger to his lips and winked.

Susie rushed past them, having caught a glimpse of her boss and his wife, all at sea in the crowd. Marway was smiling as she brought them through to the relative calm of the kitchen, but his wife had a wincing expression, unaccustomed to a sweltering roomful of burly sweating men, some interesting looking women, and Green Onions at sixty-five decibels.

CHAPTER 30

'I said, for that much, love, I'd swing from a chandelier naked! An' that's how it started, like it was just a laugh, you know…'

Trudie threw back her blonde head and laughed, everything shaking and jiggling, including the dragons dangling from her earlobes.

Wally was well into another of his interminable tales that never seemed to have a point or a punchline: '…an' then the C.O. caught us red-handed – what you two friggin' think you're playin' at? We're collectin' information on the opponents' military capabilities, sir!'

'So we raided the house, small terraced job, opposite the suspect IRA house.' A Full Screw – corporal – from 3 Para was holding two young Toms enthralled. 'An' we get into the loft, then we get a slate off, use the old elastic band gig, an' we…' he crouched down, using his hands for binoculars '… were stuck in there for fourteen fuckin' days!'

'No, listen,' Harry said, hanging onto the bloke next to him, because if he didn't he'd fall over, 'Harris – Steve -he turns to the arsehole, says to him – Sir, I wasn't doin' any field signal, I was tellin' that bugger behind me to get a friggin' move on! Laugh…!'

Dillon, in the middle of five, had one of his best stories rolling. He'd gone from keg bitter via Newcastle Brown, with a brief detour for a Grolsch or three, to Famous Grouse, and he was feeling on top of the world, no muzziness, no whirling pit, dandy, just great, fantastic.

'… so Jimmy says, Sir, I know how we can get our bearings – compass was lost, see – so he takes out this razor blade, starts stroking it against the palm of his hand, an' this prat of an officer looks on. What the hell you doin', Hammond? Magnetising the razor, Sir. He ties this piece of cotton round it, and it worked. Next day there's this prat with a bandaid round his hand – an' we know…' Dillon broke off, gasping with laughter '… we know the stupid bastard's gone an' tried it!'

From the kitchen doorway, standing with Helen and Shirley, Susie watched her husband's face. His eyes had nearly gone, that was easy to tell, but she didn't mind. It was the first time since he'd come out that he'd allowed himself to relax, really let go. She knew the strain he was under, trying to make a go of things. Things had been tough at first, no proper job to slot into (not much call in Civvy Street for Fieldcraft – weapons handling, camouflage and concealment, surveillance of enemy firebase), and on top of it, the trouble with Taffy and Steve. But now, fingers crossed, things were looking up. Not just a job, any old job, but his very own business, and money to back it, thanks to Mr Marway. Feeling a bit guilty that she was neglecting them, Susie looked round for the couple, but they seemed to have drifted off somewhere. Hardly surprising in this bedlam. Her own head was starting to throb, and a fixed look of long-suffering exhaustion was stamped on Helen's face, like one of those TV adverts for premenstrual tension.

Tina Turner had replaced Buddy Holly, her raucous, strangulated voice belting out Simply the Best. A drunken chorus took it up, and Dillon was hauled onto a chair, glass in hand, to lead the community singing. Halfway through the mind-blowing din, Harry turned the sound low and gave Dillon a broad sweaty grin and the thumbs-up.

'Thanks – thanks for coming…' Dillon beamed down on them, on top of the world, his voice hoarse with singing and the emotion of the moment. 'This is a big day for me, for Stag Security – so pass, it on to any of the lads comin' out into civvies – we got work for 'em!' He stuck his fist in the air, pumping it in a victory salute. 'We're simply the best!'

Cheers and shouts turned into a chant of 'Dance! Dance! Dance!' which was all the encouragement Dillon needed, if he needed any. A space cleared, and Dillon and Tina went for it, a circle of clapping hands and stamping feet, the singing almost loud enough to drown out the stereo.

On the fringe of the crowd, Susie shrank away, embarrassed at the spectacle Dillon was making of himself. He was gone, in a world of his own, shirt stuck to his body as he spun round and round, arms up, fingers clicking, hips swaying, performing fancy side-steps and sensuous shimmies. Then she thought, he's not at all bad. In fact he was good. Hellfire, he was brilliant!

Helen had had enough, both of Dillon's gyrations and Tina Turner's shrill vocals. She leaned over and shouted in Susie's ear, 'Can somebody change that bloody record! You know the neighbours have been at the door – next thing they'll call in the police. Turn it down!'

Susie nodded, put her glass down on the sideboard and slid open a drawer; she had something else in mind. Frank was enjoying himself and she wasn't going to spoil his fun, not tonight of all nights. She knew it was here somewhere, amongst their collection of EPs, some of them as old as the Ark. Rummaging through, she pounced, triumphant.

'Found it!' She held up the record in its tattered paper sleeve for Shirley to see. 'This used to be his favourite – he's always loved dancing to it.'

There was no way she could get near the stereo. 'Harry!' Susie waved to attract his attention, handing the record to him over the heads and crush of bodies. 'Will you put this on, it's his…' pointing to Dillon, still lost in the music '… it's his favourite.'

Harry yelled, 'Cliff! Cliff!' and passed the record on to Cliff at the turntable, then went back to his monologue on the art of warfare that even Tina Turner couldn't disrupt: 'I mean, a stun grenade, mate, it's what – fifteen centimetres high and ten centimetres round, weighs 250 grams, you pull that ring, you get one helluva bang that ignites the magnesium – that's what creates the flash-bang effect…'

Cliff had missed his way as a deejay. There was barely a break in the music. One moment Dillon was whirling and singing along to Simply the Best in the middle of a bopping, heaving crowd. In the very next, four heavy pounding piano chords pummelled the air.

BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM!

You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain -

BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM!

Too much in love drives a man insane -

The crowd bopping and heaving around him, Dillon stood frozen to the spot, hair plastered to his scalp, sweat dripping off him. Something in his face seemed broken. His throat worked. Wild-eyed now, his expression ugly, demented, Dillon barged forward, roughly thrusting bodies out of the way. He reached out, hands like claws, swiped the playing arm, an horrendous screeeeech as the stylus skidded across the record.

'Which bastard put this on!' Panting, staring round, eyes out of kilter, mad-looking.

Harry was there in a trice, a bulky, comforting arm around Dillon's shoulder. 'Outside, come on, old son. Let's have a breather…'

Numbed by the suddenness and shock of it, Susie watched her husband being led away, shoulders hunched under the protective shelter of Harry's arm. As for the third or fourth time that night Tina Turner began yet another rendition of Simply the Best.

Some of the crowd had spilled from the flat onto the outside landing. They were getting to the silly stage, fizzing up bottles of lager and squirting one another, laughing like drains. Farther along, neighbours were poking their heads out, and when they didn't get much change, slamming back inside.

Harry sat on the concrete steps. He offered a cigarette to Dillon and they both smoked for a while, the thump of music, shouts and screams of laughter issuing from the flat. Leaning against the brick parapet, Dillon stared off into the darkness, a million light-years away. He hardly heard Harry's angry, 'I'll whop that idiot Cliff! Guess he didn't know, Frank.'

As if voicing a private thought, Dillon said, 'I don't understand, it's only since I been in civvies it keeps on comin' back…'

A bottle went over and splintered in the courtyard below. From somewhere, a man's enraged shout about this time of night, pack it in or else. Dillon dragged deep, let the smoke out with a sigh. 'Yeah, I know, you think I want to get involved?' he said. The question was addressed as much to himself as to Harry. 'He says they're in London.'

'Yeah, an' maybe Wally's contact's a load of crap,' Harry said. 'Right now, we got an opportunity to give a leg-up to our lads comin' out. They all need work.' He stood up and flicked his cigarette end away, the red ember sailing off through the dark air. 'Let's go back in, I don't want one of those buggers pullin' my blonde.'

The music was even louder now, hysterical screams mixed in with it. Another bottle went crashing down. The men outside the flat were booming out 'Here we go here we go here we go. Here we go here we…' full-throated baritones and basses.

Dillon made a small gesture. 'Yeah, go on, gimme a few minutes.'

Harry moved off. He looked back over his shoulder. 'Not our war any more, Frank,' he said, and carried on, shouting at the drunken scrum outside the flat to bloody well keep the noise down.

From the landing below a woman's voice screamed up, 'I'm gonna call the police! You hear me? I've got two kids tryin' to sleep, you got no right! Stop it!'

She was standing in the concrete stairwell, built out from the main block, strained white face staring up. A thin woman with straggling hair, she clutched the fur-trimmed collar of a long coat to her throat, a night-dress underneath, fluffy slippers on her bare feet.

She spotted Dillon at the parapet and shook her fist at him. 'You bastards think you own this estate! I got two kids scared out of their wits…!'

Dillon stared back down into the venomous face, pinched with fury. He was used to faces like that, women's faces especially. And their eyes. It was their eyes that haunted him. Eyes that looked at him as if he'd crawled out from under a stone and left a trail of slime behind him. As if he wasn't even human. As if he wasn't any kind of life-form at all.

Border checkpoint. County Tyrone. October 1987.

It is dusk, the poor light made worse by the drizzle sweeping in across the fields and the isolated clusters of farm buildings, their red corrugated roofs shining slick-wet. A line of vehicles, cars and vans, most of them old and beat-up, all of them mud-spattered, wait at the striped barrier. The squaddies are in no hurry. They are here till changeover at twenty-one hundred, so it makes no difference to them. Four men form a semi-circle round the car at the barrier. They wear flak jackets over their DPM uniforms, with special non-slip shoulder pads for their rifle butts. At the hip, trained on the leading vehicle and ready to fire, they hold L1A1 rifles, fitted with thirty-round magazines. The sling of the weapon is attached to the right wrist so that it can't be snatched off in a scuffle.

While these four keep watch, three men and a corporal search the car and its occupants. In this instance, a single occupant, a young man of about twenty, twenty-one. Suspect age group, late teens, early twenties, so he is made to stand, hands on head, just a shirt and pullover, in the grey drizzle. Two soldiers check the inside, one has a sken in the boot. As they re-group the young man mutters under his breath, 'You bastards do this, ya know it's the greyhound meetin'. You do this every meet.'

The squaddie nearest him raises his rifle and smacks the butt into the side of his head. That shuts him up. The young man bends over, hands on head, cowering. He is bundled in the car, the door slammed shut on him, waved on. The next car takes its place at the barrier.

Dillon and his squad – Jimmy, Harry, Taffy and six Toms – stand next to the guardpost, watching. They've been out for four hours, 'tabbing around the cuds' as the Paras call patrolling the countryside, and they are good and wet and miserable, and to add further insult, the Bedford RL hasn't shown up, which is a real pisser.

Dillon glances at his watch, unnecessarily, for the third time. The truck is two minutes later than it was the last time he looked. He says to Jimmy, 'Go check where our ruddy transport is, it's half-past seven!'

The next car is a real old banger, more rust than bodywork, two teenagers inside. Same procedure as before. Made to stand, hands on heads, away from the vehicle, four rifles trained on them while the search team go to work. To vary the monotony, however, this time they decide to chuck everything inside the car, including clothing and personal belongings, onto the muddy road. A green plastic holdall is tipped out – gym kit, Adidas trainers, bodybuilding magazines, CDs, videos, a Japanese computer game and cassette tapes. The glove compartment is swept clean, the boot emptied. Then the boys are shoved up against the car, arms spreadeagled on the bonnet, legs kicked apart, while they are body searched.

The drivers waiting in line are becoming impatient. One or two hanging out, waving and cursing, others sounding their horns. This makes the same difference as before, which is nil. Twenty-one hundred hours is approaching at its own sweet pace, and a few curses and car horns won't make it get here any quicker.

One of the teenagers says something, or is thought to have said something, or perhaps he just happens to have that kind of face. He gets a rifle butt in the kidneys and slumps to his knees, clutching his back. The three soldiers stand in a tight circle around him and his companion, crowding them a little, as if egging them on, as if eager for an opportunity, waiting in hopeful expectancy for a show of retaliation, no matter how feeble. Meanwhile the drizzle comes down, the light fades by the minute, the car horns toot, and Dillon and his lads stamp their feet to keep the circulation going.

Jimmy returns, a sour expression under the streaky brown camouflage cream on his face. 'It's broken down, 'bout five miles back,' he tells Dillon disgustedly. 'We can start on foot, they'll pick us up soon as they got a replacement.'

'Shit!' Dillon shakes his head. 'Okay, right lads, fall in.'

Moaning and cursing, the squad forms two lines and moves out from the guardpost. As they pass the soldiers on duty, a barrage of friendly, filthy insults is exchanged; there isn't much love lost between the regular infantry and the Paras, but they have to keep up the appearance of unity for the sake of the locals.

Bringing up the rear, Jimmy bends down and lets the air out of one of the car's front tyres, gives the two boys a cheery wink, and goes on his way.

CHAPTER 31

Capes glistening, the squad trudges on, rifles at forty-five degrees pointing to the ground, gloved hands curled round the trigger guards, ready for action. The gloves have padded knuckles and fingers, except for the trigger finger, to allow maximum feel and sensitivity. There is dissension in the ranks, grumbles and moans, and Dillon is getting a mite fed-up with it. He bellows over his shoulder:

'It's not my fault the ruddy truck's broken down – we just gotta head back to base, there's no changeover!'

He's ready for a shower and a hot meal as much as any of them, but if they've got to tab another five miles, that's all there is to it. No point the fat knackers grousing.

Peering ahead into the gloom, Dillon raises his hand, makes a gentle up-and-down motion. In taking a corner too fast, a dilapidated old farm truck with a few bales of hay in the back has skidded on the muddy road and got its front offside wheel bogged down in the ditch. A coat held over her head, a woman stands watching two young lads stuffing their sodden jackets under the wheels to provide traction. She gets up into the cab, and with a grinding of gears, revving like crazy, tries to reverse onto the road. The wheels spin, mud flying, and it's clear that if the woman perseveres till Doomsday, she's not going to make it.

Dillon inspects the hedgerows on either side of the lane. He fans his arm, and the squad splits into two.

'Just check it out, lads. If it's okay we can bum a lift back. Jimmy, take the rear.' Dillon waves Harry on. 'Left side… you lads to the front.'

The two young farm boys turn as the squad warily approaches. Hair stuck to their heads like shiny black caps, they stare at the men with flat, expressionless eyes. Dillon walks past them to the cab. He waits for the nod from Harry, gets it, and the thumbs-up from Taffy. All clear. The woman looks down at him. She has long greying hair, darkened to the roots by rainwater, limp strands trailing over the collar of her saturated coat.

'You want a hand, love?' Dillon holds up four fingers, motions four of the Toms to the front of the truck. Two down in the ditch, two on the road, they put their shoulders to it, the woman pressing down hard on the accelerator. The truck shifts a few inches, rolls down again, and with a final heave judders out of the ditch and onto the road, belching blue smoke.

If Dillon is expecting a nod, or even a word of thanks, he is sadly mistaken. The woman jerks her head to the two farm boys, holding their sodden jackets like bundles of wet washing.

'Can you give us a lift, about five miles up the road, love?' Dillon asks, pleasantly enough.

The woman ignores him. 'Get in,' she tells the boys. 'Now!'

'Bitch!' Jimmy says, standing at Dillon's shoulder. And as the two boys move to the cab, gives a muttered, 'Frank, you see their drivin' licence?'

Dillon puts his hand out, restraining one of the boys as he's about to climb aboard. 'Just a second, son, how old are you?'

The boy tenses, looks down at Dillon's gloved hand. For a moment nobody moves, the clinging veil of drizzle shrouding the motionless figures of the two boys and the soldiers in grey murk. Nothing is said, no overt action taken, but a change has taken place. Everyone senses it. The farm boys are edgy, eyes flickering nervously. The Toms have spread themselves out in a circle, weapons raised, training them on the truck. This is bandit country and the enemy is everywhere, and it doesn't pay to forget it, not even for an instant. As NITAT training for a tour of the Province has drummed into them so they can recite it in their sleep: 'Why learn from your own mistakes when you can learn from the mistakes of others?'

Stepping back, Dillon makes a sign. It is a standard drill, and the men perform it as an automatic reflex. It is rapid, short, brutally efficient. Without ceremony the boys are manhandled against the side of the truck, faces bashed into the wooden slats, arms twisted behind their backs, legs kicked apart. Dillon steps back in, grabs a full fistful of hair, yanks the boy's head around.

'Check inside the truck,' he orders Jimmy, and to the boy, whose terrified eyes are rolling in their sockets, showing the whites, 'An' you look at me, look at me\ Name, age, address. Now!'

Dillon unhooks his thirty-four-centimetre long metal flashlight and hits the boy in the face with it, then shines the light directly into his eyes

'Leave him alone, dear God!' the woman screams from the cab. She leaps down, coat billowing around her. She kicks out at Dillon, face twisted in a rage of anguish that is pitiful in its sheer helplessness. 'Dear God, just leave us alone, they're just kids…'

Dillon lets go of the boy and with the back of his hand slaps the woman so hard across the face that she is knocked reeling into the side of the truck. He grabs the boy by the collar, drags him to the front of the truck. Harry and Taffy are sorting out the other one. They have him pinioned between them, a shrimp between two whales, an arm apiece, their two faces an inch either side of the boy's, shouting into his ears, 'Name age address, Name age address, Name age address.'

Dillon has the young boy bent backwards over the mudguard, arm across his throat. The boy is choking, turning blue. In a croaking whisper he gasps out, 'Lee Farm, I'm sixteen… what have I done, leave us alone… Ronan… me name's Ronan Shaw…'

With two Toms covering him from the road, Jimmy has climbed up into the back of the truck. Rifle up in the firing position, he unclips his flashlight and shines it over the bales of straw. He crouches on one knee, directing the beam into the gaps underneath and between the bales. Jimmy stiffens as he sees something move. Not a trick of the light, not just a shadow, he's damn sure of that. Vaulting backwards off the truck, Jimmy rams the rifle butt into his shoulder and pumps off half a mag. The shots crack and reverberate over the empty dark fields, rolling away like distant thunder. Something shrieks.

Dillon appears at the run, eyes dark, glittering, under the leather rim of his Red Beret.

'Jimmy?… Jimmy?!'

A thin, shrill yelping sets their teeth on edge. Holding onto the side of the truck, the woman swings her face towards them, mouth bleeding, and starts screeching, 'Bastards, bastards, it's the dog, you filth, you scum, it's the dog!'

In the flashlight beams the long narrow head lifts up and falls back. It tries again, gets its head up, paws scrabbling feebly, and slides down again, slipping in its own blood. The rough rope halter around the dog's neck, tied to the back of the cab, gleams wet and dark red.

'It's their dog, Jimmy,' Dillon says in a low voice. 'What the fuck have you done?'

'It moved!' Jimmy retorts indignantly. 'It was hidden under the straw.'

'Put it out of its misery. Do it!' Dillon glares at him, and then his grim face suddenly cracks in a smile. 'They should've given us a lift, so sod 'em.'

He walks back to where the woman is tending to the farm boys, dabbing at their cuts with a soiled rag. Both are scared witless, both crying openly. The woman gives Dillon a look of venomous hatred. He shoves her towards the cab, signals the three of them to get in. From the back of the truck the piteous whimpering of the dog is cut short by a single shot. Dillon wafts his hand. 'On your way, go on, get moving.'

The engine roars, and as the truck moves off, the woman leans out. Her face has a wild, tortured look, framed by long grey hair straggling in the breeze. 'I hope you all die of cancer,' she says into Dillon's eyes, and spits at him.

Dillon runs alongside the truck, keeping pace, shouting up at her, 'I remember your face, bitch! You hear me, move, go on, get out!'

The truck disappears into the gloom, its single faulty tail-light flickering dimly. The squad trudges on through the heavy drizzle. Only four miles to go. Jimmy catches up to Dillon. After a minute or so, sloshing side by side through the mud, he says, 'They must have been headin' for the Lifford.' Dillon looks at him. Jimmy nods, an impish smile lurking at the corner of his mouth. 'The dog, it was a greyhound!'

'Be in their stew tonight,' Dillon says, eyes straight ahead, ploughing on. 'Animals all of them.'

Ten minutes later the best sight of the night, a Bedford RL lumbers into view. Everybody yells, fists in the air, Dillon included, and all give the driver their choicest repertoire of foul abuse as he rumbles up, flashing his lights.

Clutching her fur collar, the woman stared up into Dillon's face. She was visibly shaking, hair bouncing on her shoulders. 'You dirty bastards, they're pissin' over the railings, animals…'

'I'm sorry, okay.' Dillon held up his hand. 'I'll go an' quieten 'em down.'

'I know who you are, Frank Dillon!' the woman suddenly said. She pointed an accusing finger. 'I'm gonna call the police.'

Shaking his head, and feeling it start to spin, Dillon moved to the top of the stairwell. Holding out both hands in appeasement, he stumbled down a step or two, and the woman dodged back as if a pan of boiling water had been tipped over her foot.

'Don't come near me!'

Dillon swayed on the steps the lethal mixture of keg bitter, brown ale, lager, Scotch and Tina Turner combining and igniting in his brain like nitroglycerine. He tried to turn back, missed his footing, and slumped instead against the wall, his face scraping the concrete. Down on his knees, cheek pressed to the wall, Dillon whispered in a voice near as dammit to weeping, 'I got two kids… I got two kids.'

CHAPTER 32

Falls Road District. Belfast. March 1988.

It is night, the streets are quiet, the pubs and clubs emptied and dispersed nearly an hour ago. A cold wind blows along the street of terraced houses, each with its tiny square of garden bordered by a low brick wall, rattles the chip papers in the gutter. A garden gate creaks, four hunched shapes scuttle in, flatten themselves like limpets to the front wall of the house. A light burns above behind floral bedroom curtains, a glow from the hallway through the stained-glass fanlight above the door. Crouching close to the wall, the brick is chill and damp against Dillon's cheek. He checks the illuminated dial of his watch. The green second-hand creeps into the third quadrant. Very slowly he eases himself up and looks back to the corner of the street. A single ruby-red light winks from the driver's aperture, telling him that the APC is in position, ready to move in.

Once more Dillon looks at his watch, for the last time. The green hand sweeps away the final seconds. Dillon gives the signal.

Jimmy steps up and with one swing of the sledgehammer smashes the front door open. The armoured personnel carrier is already at the gate, the rest of the squad piling out, the alsatians straining on their short leashes, soldiers in visored helmets deploying along the street. At the kerb, a lance-corporal speaks into a shortwave walkie-talkie, confirming to the 21/C that entry has been effected.

The hallway of the small terraced house is suddenly packed with bodies. A woman with cropped dark hair and a narrow pinched face stands screaming at the foot of the stairs, arms held wide barring access; a pregnancy in its seventh month makes a bulge like a bowling ball in her quilted housecoat.

'No, please, dear God no!' The woman retreats one step up but keeps her scrawny grip on the banister. 'Oh, God help me please, don't harm my kids… there's just children upstairs.'

'How many upstairs, who's upstairs?' Dillon barks at her. He grips her arm tight, shaking her. 'Gimme their names, ages, come on!'

From the living-room and kitchen, the sounds of drawers being wrenched out, cupboard doors flung open, their contents scattered, ornaments swept off shelves, crockery breaking.

'I swear before God it's just my kids,' the woman weeps, her eyes pleading with Dillon.

Jimmy comes through waving a family allowance book.

'She's got seven bastards, eldest is seventeen, one fifteen, an' two twelve-year olds, rest are girls.'

'Get away from the stairs.' Dillon twists her arm, prising her grip from the banister. 'I said move it!' He turns, gives a curt nod to the four Toms crowding in through the front door. 'Back up, move up.' Roughly shoving her aside, Dillon cautiously mounts the stairs, clicking the firing control of his rifle to automatic, a live one up the spout, ready to fire.

'You got any lodgers, eh?' The woman lies slumped on the stairs, stretched out. 'Answer me!'

The woman shakes her head, tears streaming down her cheeks. Feebly she tries to grasp hold of Dillon's trouser-leg. He kicks her away without looking. In a broken voice she pleads with him, 'Ah no, please, they're just children. Please don't, they've done nothing wrong…'

Jimmy laughs, dangling the family allowance book in front of her. She makes a grab for it. Holding it tauntingly out of reach, he rips it to shreds and sprinkles the scraps over her.

'You scum!' The woman's face breaks out in ugly red blotches. 'I got seven kids to feed, how long you think it's gonna take for me to get that renewed… please why don't you tell me what you want, please!'

From up above comes the sound of doors banging, scampering feet on the bedroom floor, the terrified screams of children. Furniture is being moved, wardrobe doors crashing open, the tinkling of breaking glass.

Harry wanders in from the kitchen, shaking his head. Jimmy gives him the nod. 'Out in front, get the flagstones up.' He shouts upstairs, 'Everything kosher down here, Frank!'

Dillon leans over the banister. 'Get the bitch up here!'

Jimmy grabs the pregnant woman under the armpit and force-marches her up the stairs, practically dragging her on her knees the last few steps. The front bedroom has been ransacked, the mattress ripped apart, bedding thrown into a corner. The contents of the dressing-table and wardrobe are strewn over the floor. A little glass shelf and its collection of religious pictures and icons lie broken and trampled behind the door.

Jimmy crunches through the debris, his bent arm hooked under the sobbing woman's arm, half-supporting her. Harry comes in behind, his square bulk filling the doorframe.

Dillon points. 'Get the baby out.'

In its crib, an eighteen-month old baby with a halo of golden curls, thumb tucked into its rosebud mouth, sleeps peacefully through it all.

'Leave her be, you scum!' The woman flails her arm helplessly, but Dillon is well out of range. 'There's nothin' here – leave her! Don't you touch her!'

Jimmy swings her forward. 'Do what he says, tart! What are you, a breedin' machine, a real slag, aren't you – get the kid out.'

'I'll get the police, you soldiers you got no right, no right to do this!'

Dillon beckons Harry over and together they approach the crib. Jimmy restrains the woman, who wants to scream yet daren't, for fear of waking the child. Harry looks underneath and round the back of the crib while Dillon feels gingerly along the edge of the mattress. He eases the covers back. The baby's eyes open, she blinks and focuses, and starts to bawl. The mother screams and claws to go to her. Jimmy hauls her straining body to the door. Harry lifts out the crying, wriggling baby and Dillon removes the pillow and mattress, prods and feels at them, tosses them down.

Out on the landing, Dillon says, 'Get a neighbour, we'll take the tart in for questioning.'

The rest of squad waiting in the hallway shake their heads as Dillon comes downstairs. Behind them they have left a wrecked house, and nothing to show for it. Stepping over the torn-up paving stones, Dillon gives the wipe-out signal. The soldiers deployed along the street start to gather in, the APC throttles up, the dog-handlers rein in the alsatians.

Two Toms lead the woman through the gate, still wearing bedroom slippers and quilted housecoat, her head bowed, both hands pressed to her swollen belly. Always one for a ready quip, Jimmy calls out, 'Sorry about this, tart, we were lookin' for a dead hunger striker!'

This gets a general laugh, slackening the tension, and Dillon says through a grin, 'Just hold her for an hour or so, get a photograph an' let her go.'

The woman is bundled into the back of a Land Rover fitted with Macralon armour and toughened anti-shatter windows. She leans out, her face distorted, so that it's hardly recognisably the same woman, with an intense, implacable hatred.

'You're animals, all of you!'

Walking by, Dillon ducks his head. 'Tarra! See you again some dark night! And Kathleen -' he wags his finger ' – watch out for your kids eh!'

The Land Rover moves off, the woman turning to look at Dillon through the back window. She will never forget his lean, hard face with its vertical scar below the left eye, and Dillon will never forget hers, with its look of dumb, hopeless, helpless defeat.

A priest hurries across the street and pushes through the knot of soldiers waiting to board the APC. He pauses with his hand on the garden gate, grey-haired, slightly stooped, taking in the upturned paving stones, the wrecked front door. He turns to look at the soldiers, and then at Dillon, the streetlight glinting off his metal-rimmed spectacles. Stepping through the front door, he sees the shambles of the living-room, and looks up the stairs. On the landing, the younger children, three boys and two girls, in pyjamas and nightdresses, sit huddled together, crying, shivering with fright. The older boy stands behind them, an eyebrow split open, blood running from his nose, holding his baby sister in his arms. The little girl has stopped crying and is examining with curiosity the blood dripping onto her fingers from her brother's nose.

The priest has to close his eyes.

'Why? Dear Mother of God, why?'

'Frank!'

Wearily, Dillon opened his eyes. He didn't know where he was. He didn't know what time of day it was. Yes he did, it was dark, which meant it must be night. But he wasn't in bed, so where the hell was he? Susie's voice – shrill, hysterical – pierced through the tender tissue that was his throbbing brain.

'Frank, for God's sake will you get them out of the house, they're going into the kids' room, Frank! They're gettin' out of hand, throwing bottles over the railings, the neighbours have called the police… Frank!'

Dillon pushed himself up, crawling hand over hand up the concrete wall of the stairwell. Once upright, he shook his head blearily, and staggered past her up the steps. 'I'll get them out.'

'They're bargin' into the kids' room, terrifying them…'

Dillon halted on the landing. His head came slowly round to look at her over his shoulder. Susie had never before seen such a dark welter of twisted demonic hatred on his face, much less turned upon her. As if he loathed her with all his being. Loathed her.

'Frank…?'

Dillon turned back, a strange distant glaze in his eyes, and went on, head down like a charging bull, leaving Susie frozen to the spot.

Dillon kissed the boys, tucked in their duvets. 'Nothin' to be scared of, they're just havin' a good time!' Trying to make it sound hearty and jovial. 'You weren't scared, were you? Eh? Not big lads like you two? Nothing to be frightened of…'

Phil peeped out. 'They're drunk, one of 'em's been sick in the toilet.'

'I'll clear it up,' Dillon said. 'Now, go to sleep – tell you what, I'll sit here, keep guard, eh? So nobody comes in, how's that?'

He patted their shoulders and pulled up the small chair from Kenny's desk, sat down facing the door. Opposite him, the picture gallery of posters, postcards and photographs, the relics and mementoes tacked to the wall. High up in one corner, soundlessly circling on invisible strings, a camouflage-pattern C-130 with RAF roundels. Hunched forward, Dillon stared at the wall of memories, listening to the noise of revelry still going on downstairs. Music was still playing, and through it he heard Harry bellowing, 'Everybody out, come on now, lads, party's over. Come on… out now!'

The racket gradually diminished as people started leaving. Voices on the landing outside the window, laughter, the clatter of footsteps. The Beatles finished Norwegian Wood, followed by a silence that seemed to signal the end of it all, and then a pounding piano and Great Balls of Fire burst out once again. Dillon rested his forehead in his hands. Abruptly the music stopped. The front door banged.

From the window Dillon watched the lads climbing into their cars. Drunken singing and shouting sailed up from the courtyard. Some of the cars drove round three or four times, headlights flaring, horns blasting. Dillon saw headlights shining through smoke, hoses trailing across a cindery patch of earth bordered by whitewashed stumps. Groups of people with blackened faces, shrouded in blankets and coats, gazing with shell-shocked eyes at the smouldering ruins of Hennessey's Bar. Harry, chin jutting out, saying Come on, let's get back in there. I'm game! Harry was game all right. Too fucking game. Because he'd nothing to lose. No wife, no kids. The Paras had been his entire life – wife, kids, family all rolled up into one, stamped in silver with a winged parachute, crown and lion. If coming out into civvies had been a shock to Dillon, it must have been traumatic for Harry, like being severed from the umbilical cord all over again. Suddenly finding yourself floating, rootless, in an alien world that didn't give a toss who you were or what you'd done. Just another useless fat knacker who hadn't had the sense to stop a sniper's bullet in the Falklands or in Ulster like some of his mates had. Isn't that why you joined the Army, mate, to get your fucking brains blown out?

The door was pushed open and Harry crept in. 'Cops arrived, but it's all under control. Just a few stragglers left.'

He went to the window and looked down, his broad, beery-red face relaxing into a fond grin. 'But they're on their way home now… okay bunch of blokes.' He patted Dillon's shoulder and turned to leave. 'I'll check out Wally's info – that what you want?'

'Harry, wait…'

Harry stopped, his hand on the doorknob. His face wasn't relaxed any more, the fond grin had gone. Now he looked tense.

'Like you said, mate,' he reminded Dillon, his voice low and angry, 'we made a pact! Jimmy's gone, Steve's dead, not a lot Taffy can do from inside, so it's down to you and me Frank… I'll check out Wally's info and get back to you.'

Harry shut the door quietly, not waiting for Dillon to reply. They had made the pact and there was no backing out of that, but without the others, without the backup – or was it without the army?… Dillon sighed, he was so screwed up inside that twisted emotions strangled each other – guilt, anger, grief. He had no fury left, he could not feel the hatred or the anger he knew he needed. What if Wally's information was sound, that these were the two dark-haired boys who were sitting at that table that fucking awful night, the two smiling boys who had downed their beers and offered Dillon's crowd their seats, those two, who had strolled out of the bar that night, knowing within seconds the place would be blown apart. They had to have known. Wasn't that why they had smiled?

There had been many weeks of checking and questioning everyone in or near the pub that night. A barman remembered the boys. He had never seen them before, they were not regulars, but he remembered them because one of them was carrying what looked like a carrier bag with booze brought in from outside. The disco attracted a lot of kids who'd slip in their own liquor to save a few bob, but then the two had ordered beers and sat at the table, the same table Dillon's lads took over.

No one had ever been arrested for the bomb attack. Months, even years after, the description of those two killers' faces was imprinted on, and in, each of the minds of those who survived. They would always mark the anniversary with one hell of a binge, and they had always sworn no matter how long it took, that they would each make it their responsibility to keep the hunt going, it was personal, not Army. The last anniversary, they had actually combined with a new recruit's birthday bash, but it didn't mean their pact was over. Yet thinking back, Dillon knew that in some way the fever was dying, life went on, other mates had been killed.

Dillon thought about Barry Newman and wondered whether maybe that was why he remembered so often now. It wasn't because of the music, the same song that was being played that night, that bloody Great Balls of Fire. It was Newman's son Billy. That was the connection or the memory and it was there like a dark cloud. Dillon stared at the wall of photographs. He closed his eyes to blank them out. 'Oh Christ,' he whispered, as he felt the dark insidious cloud creeping over him, felt the tremors of guilt, of anger, of grief and then the burning sensation, the fury. It was coming back, and he was afraid. Why was it that every time he felt as if he was breathing clean air, something, someone drew him back down? It was as if he was suffocating inside himself, but he had instigated that pact, and if there was only Harry and himself left then he would have to see it through.

CHAPTER 33

Dillon came into the office to find Susie halfway through the invoices, a neat stack of typed envelopes, already stamped, ready for posting on the desk.

He said, 'Cliff not here?'

'No, he's gone home, felt sick, said it was the pork pie.' She rolled another blank invoice into the machine, gave him a look from under her eyebrows. 'He was just hung-over!'

Dillon went to the board, hunting round for a piece of chalk. 'Good news is, we got the Embassy job – two weeks' work, bodyguard, driver for an official. The armoured Merc blew him away.'

Susie totted up figures on the calculator and started typing. 'Still not covering costs. What's the Embassy paying, and I'll log it.'

'Four hundred a day!' Dillon said, and when she didn't leap up and hug him, tell him well done, he said testily, 'Harry on a job, is he?'

'Mmm, could do with a few more like that…' Susie frowned, concentrating on working out the seventeen-and-a-half per cent VAT. Bloody stupid figure. She said after a moment, 'I don't think that car will pay for itself, you know. The Granada will, even the security wagon…' She glanced up. 'What did you say?'

Dillon tapped the board with the chalk. 'Who's crossed these fares out?'

'Do you know what your outgoing costs are?' Susie asked, resuming her typing. 'The hire purchase, insurance, the rent?'

Dillon waved her off. He couldn't be bothered with mere details. The phone rang. As Susie picked it up, Harry walked in. He gave Dillon a straight look. 'We got to talk…'

'Stag Security, Taxi, Chauffeur Drive.' Susie put her hand over the receiver. 'Are you free, Harry?'

'Yeah, yeah…' He plucked at Dillon's sleeve. 'Wanna word.'

Dillon didn't want to have a word with him. He knew where Harry had been, and it wasn't out on a job. He'd been cruising round in the Granada, checking out a certain address. Harry had his sights fixed, total tunnel vision, determined to see it through to the bitter end.

'Sorry to keep you waiting… yes… Aldershot? And the address?'

Harry reached out. 'That's for me!'

'What?' Dillon said sharply. Somebody calling from The Depot? What the hell was going down here?

'Wants to speak to you, Harry,' said Susie, handing the receiver to him. He sat on the edge of the desk, his back to them. 'Yeah, it's me, speakin'. Oh yeah, yeah… he told you what I'm interested in, did he? Okay, I'm on my way. Thanks.'

Harry put the phone down. 'I'm not free,' he said to Susie, and to Dillon, looking him in the eyes, 'I need the Granada.' He jerked his head towards the passage. 'Frank…!'

Sighing, Dillon moved to follow him. Susie threw down her pencil, arms folded tightly across her chest.

'Can we just sort a few things out first? One, you're going to have to stop using the limo for straight taxi fares, it costs us. Eats petrol. What do you want the Granada for, Harry?' Susie nodded fiercely at the telephone. 'Was that a job?'

Sitting there, Miss Business Efficiency got right on Dillon's tits. He burst out, 'Nothin' I do is right accordin' to you! An' don't start handin' out orders like you run the show -'

Susie interrupted. 'You keep the portable when you don't need it, or you do for phoning in your bets!'

'I don't call them in, I just go over the road!' Dillon told her with a nasty, leering smile. 'An' if you want me, that's where I'll be.'

'Then get somebody else to do this!' Susie was up out of her chair. 'I'll go back and work for Mr Marway.'

'You think I don't appreciate it?'

'Er, Frank… Frank?' said Harry uneasily, sniffing a storm force ten row brewing.

'Just a minute!' Dillon glowered at his wife. 'I'm sick of you shovin' that Marway down my throat.'

Susie snatched up her bag, really fuming now. Harry sidled to the door, the expression on her face convincing him that this was as good a moment as any to take a leak. He slipped out as Susie said very softly, the calm before the storm, 'I don't believe you said that. If it wasn't for him you wouldn't have a business.'

'I hear you – okay – I hear you,' Dillon snarled at her.

'If you go down, Frank, if you and your precious lads don't get this company working, then you will all fall flat on your faces.'

'You'd love that!'

'How can you say that? Don't you understand that if you don't show decent returns to the bank, they can review the loan – it is a loan, Frank, it's not a gift!' She added quietly, reasonably, 'You have to pay it back.'

'I know that,' Dillon muttered.

'An' if you blow it, Frank, then Mr Marway's liable for that loan.'

Here we go again, he thought. All roads lead back to Saint fucking Marway. He said bitterly, 'You want me to grovel to him? Thank him for lettin' my wife off early so she can give me a few hours…'

Susie yelled, 'He doesn't give you them, I do!'

Dillon nearly tore the handle off opening the desk-drawer. He slammed the petty cash box down, grabbed a fistful of notes and coins and flung them at her. Susie looked quickly away, blinking back tears. She snapped her handbag shut and picked up her coat.

'I'll collect the boys, no need for you to bother yourself.'

She walked past him to the door. Without turning, Dillon said, 'I suppose he'll be givin' you one of his cars to drive around in next.'

'Oh – you knew I was taking my driving test, did you?' There was something in her voice, odd, strained, that made him turn to look at her. 'Well, I failed it, Frank – happy? I failed.'

Dillon put out his hand, some small gesture of regret, apology even, but Susie wasn't there to see it. Smacking his fist into his palm, he went into the passage, hearing the click of her high heels on the basement steps. He could have run after her and caught her easily, but he was damned if he would. At his own pace, in his own good time, he went outside and up the steps.

The lavatory flushed. The phone was ringing as Harry came along the passage. Cautiously he poked his head in and looked round the empty office. 'Frank…?'

Cliff felt like death. He wished he was dead, actually dead, and then the awful sickly throbbing would cease. He was lying on the sheet-draped sofa, eyes closed, when Shirley arrived back at the flat. She dumped more fabric and wallpaper sample tomes on the table and hung up her coat.

'I've been sick again,' Cliff greeted her piteously. 'I've had aspirin, Disprin, Andrews… I've never had a headache like it.'

'I'm about to give you another,' Shirley said, taking off her silk headscarf.

'Have you been sick?'

'Yes, for the past five mornings.'

'Well, that couldn't be the pork pie,' Cliff said. 'Terrible pain right across my back, just here!'

Shirley stood in front of him and folded her arms.

'You know, sometimes I don't think the lift goes to the top floor with you. Didn't you hear what I just said, don't you know what it means? I'm pregnant, Cliff!'

Cliff closed his eyes again. 'Oh no!' he levered himself up. 'Oh shit!' The door banged behind her as Shirley went into the bedroom. Moaning, Cliff flopped back, something really to moan about now.

Trudie hung out of the upstairs window as Harry bounced down the steps of the Super Shine Travel Agency, to whop Cliff on the back.

'I just refreshed parts no beer can do justice to!'

Harry leaned on the railings staring down the street to the betting shop.

'I'm gonna be busy for an hour or so, you know Frank's takin' up residence in that shop, I'll catch him there.'

Cliff stood at the top of the basement steps. 'Shirley's pregnant!'

'Nothin' to do with me mate!'

'Ha ha, very funny, but I'm right in it!'

'Wrong son, I'd say she is!'

As Harry sauntered off to the betting shop, he paused by the strips of plastic curtains, watching Dillon looking at a newspaper, jotting down his runners, then flicking looks to a row of TV screens, clicking his fingers with nervous excitement. There was a nicotine smog that would have felled a carthorse.

'Skived off, did you?' With a grunt of self-satisfaction, Harry plonked himself down on the next stool. 'Cliff's back, Shirley's up the spout, not a happy man!' More than satisfied.

'We all got problems.'

'Yeah – marital! A situation I am glad to say I have successfully escaped from. In fact I'm becoming an endangered species – handsome, heterosexual, no strings, an' after the performances I've just administered, no problems with the old rod!' His smirk faded as he leaned closer. 'I'm just gonna meet up with a pal at Aldershot, you listenin'? I've checked out Wally's tip-off place, looks like it could be a safe house. Frank?'

Dillon nodded, eyes on the screen. 'I'm on a treble, this one comes in I'll be a rich man.'

'Wally's contact works in the Records Section. I mean, it might be out of the window, but on the other hand if those blokes are in London we'll need some ammo…'

'Go baby… come on, come on! Dillon was nodding, clicking his fingers. 'Yes, yes, look at that mother, yes… yes!'

Harry slid off the stool. He glanced briefly at Dillon's flushed face, body tensed, fists clenched, willing his horse on. With three furlongs to go, apparently the clear winner, the nag ran out of steam and didn't even merit a place.

'Bastard… Goddammit!' Dillon tore up his betting slip.

Harry was waiting at the door. 'You comin' with me or not, Frank?'

'Talk to you later,' said Dillon, already buried in the Daily Mirror's racing page. 'I got a good runner in the three fifteen…'

Harry went out, stony-faced. Dillon ferreted in his pockets, came up with a crumpled tenner. He looked guiltily towards the empty doorway and then jerked his head back to the screens. Five minutes later, clutching a new betting slip, Dillon was on a roll again. He'd gone for a long shot, shit or bust time, and the little beauty was tearing down the final straight as if it has a red-hot poker up its arse.

'Yes… Yes! Come on you lovely bastard, yes Dillon clapped it home and stuck both fists in the air. 'YES!'

CHAPTER 34

'Okay, close your eyes… ready?'

Taking his wife by the hand, Dillon pushed open the bedroom door and led her inside. Laid out on the bed, a long flowing nightgown in pale blue chiffon edged in lace, with thin satin straps. Beside it, a leather handbag, a bunch of flowers wrapped in cellophane, an envelope inscribed, 'For Susie – XXX.'

'Okay,' Dillon said. 'Open your eyes!'

For a long moment Susie could only stand and stare. It wasn't Christmas, it wasn't her birthday, and even when it was, Dillon had never been so extravagant.

'First, open this.' He held out the envelope. 'I'm sorry you failed, I didn't know about your test. So – six lessons with a proper driving instructor, next time you'll pass.'

Hesitantly she touched the nightdress, as if at any second it might vanish in a puff of smoke. Childishly eager to please, Dillon said, 'That's for you – and this, it's all leather, inside and out. I was going to get shoes, but I wasn't sure of your size. Well? You like them?'

'I don't know what to say…' Subsiding onto the bed, Susie fingered three or four leaflets with colour pictures of cathedral spires and elegant country houses on their glossy covers. 'What's this?'

'Weekend away…' The phone rang in the hallway and there was the scampering of feet as one of the boys scurried to answer it. 'Well, they're just brochures,' Dillon shrugged, 'but you can pick any hotel, any place you fancy. Your mum will look after the kids.'

Kenny's voice piped up the stairs. 'Dad!… Dad, it's for you!'

Dillon went to the door. 'Try that on, I'll be right back.'

Susie gathered up the nightdress and ran her fingers over the delicate lace neckline. The price tag was still attached. She looked at it in quiet wonder, slowly shaking her head.

It was Harry on the phone, as Dillon dreaded it might be. On his way back from Aldershot, he was calling on the portable, couldn't wait to tell Dillon the news. His pal in Records Section thought he could lay hands on a couple of mug shots, IRA suspects, for him and Dillon to give the once-over, see if they checked out. 'For chrissakes, you should have talked this through with me,' Dillon told him, exasperated. He got the feeling he was being steamrollered. Harry had plans, and whether he liked it or not, Dillon was included, a cog in the relentless, unstoppable machine Harry had set in motion.

Why now of all times, he fretted, on his way back upstairs. Why now? He sighed and went in.

'It was Harry. Nothing to worry about.'

Susie was sitting at the dressing-table, dreamily brushing her hair. 'That makes a change.'

'Don't you like this?' Dillon said. The nightdress was lying on the bed, a bit rumpled, as if it had been picked up and discarded.

Susie laid down the brush. 'I've got to run the kids' bath.'

'They're okay, they're watching TV,' Dillon said, looking at her in the mirror.

'But Kenny has to do his homework…'

Dillon put his hand on her shoulder. 'Susie, his homework can wait -'

'No it can't.' She came suddenly to life, stood up, agitated almost. 'If he doesn't do it now, then he won't at all.'

Dillon clumsily tried to embrace her. 'Susie, I haven't touched you for months…'

'It wasn't me drunk last night.'

'You always say you're tired… you've been tired since your started work.'

Susie pushed past him. 'Don't start in on that, Frank!'

After Harry, now this. When he'd gone to the trouble of buying her stuff, hoping to make his peace with her, trying his bloody best. Dillon held onto his temper and tried again.

'I was going to say if it's too much working for me as well, then -'

'Then give up my job? No, Frank. No… no!'

Christ, this was hard work. 'I meant,' Dillon ground out, 'you needn't come and work for me. But you take it any way you want, an' I tried…' He spread his hands helplessly. 'I tried…'

'You tried what, Frank?'

He flared up at this. 'To reach you, talk to you!'

'Why don't you look at your face when you speak to me like that?' Susie pointed at the mirror. 'Go on, look… You want to reach me, talk to me, then start getting to know who I am -'

'Take a look at your own face, sweetheart! You think any man wants to come home to -' He grabbed hold of her by the neck and thrust her head towards the mirror, 'That! Everythin' I do is wrong, I'm not good enough…' He let go, and the force of it sent her hands skittering through bottles and lipsticks, knocking them to the floor.

'Fine – you don't like this -' Dillon had the nightdress in both bunched fists, ripping it up in long slow tearing motions.

'Frank, no, stop it…'

'You don't want to come away with me, fine!' The brochures went the same way, showered over the carpet. 'I'll find another bitch that does. You don't like this -' He snatched the driving lesson vouchers off the bed. 'Fine!'

Susie plucked the envelope out of his hand, clutched it to her chest. 'Haven't' you wasted enough money for one day?' she said, not meaning it vindictively, more of a gentle chiding joke.

Dillon hit her. A terrible, vicious crack across the face. Susie crashed into the wall and slid down. She rubbed her cheek, the marks of his fingers glowing fiery red. In contrast the blood had drained from Dillon's face. In his eyes, the most mortifying pain. Hardly knowing what he was saying, he started burbling, 'I've got money, I'm earning good money, I got thirty grand…'

Susie got up, holding her cheek. 'You'd never have got that loan if I hadn't sobbed my heart out to Marway,' she said quietly, her eyes dry and hard.

Dillon took a step towards her. A vein beat in his neck. He curled his fist but Susie didn't flinch. He broke out hoarsely, 'You got a new kitchen!'

'It's not your money, and don't expect me to jump around like some stupid tart because you buy me this.' She swept her hand at the torn nightdress. 'I am sick to death of looking out for you, trying to make you see sense.'

There was volumes more she could have said; instead she stormed out onto the landing, and would have slammed the door if Dillon hadn't caught it on the swing. He went after her.

'That's what this is really about, isn't it? You want shot of me, need somebody else -'

Susie swung round at the head of the stairs and screamed in his face, 'Yes. Yes. Yes. I need – yes - all right?'' Huge tears welled up in her eyes. She turned her head away from him. 'And I wanted to pass that driving test so badly, I wanted to pass something…'

The smallness of her ambition moved him. That something so trivial, so petty, should mean so much. Dillon's throat went tight. He reached out to cover her hand on the banister rail and Susie jerked away, missed a step, and in trying to save herself lost her footing altogether and tumbled to the bottom of the stairs, landing with a heavy jarring thud he felt in the soles of his feet. Dillon heard something break. There was blood. She lay awkwardly, one leg bent underneath her, head twisted at an angle, and he thought her neck was broken.

Kenny skidded through the doorway, biting the fingers of both hands, Phil behind him screaming one endless, never-ending scream on a single high note.

'Don't touch here. Get away from her.'

Dillon knelt beside her. She was his wife, but he couldn't help her by being the hysterical, panic-stricken husband. Part of his brain clicked into automatic mode. He pressed two fingers to the carotid artery in the neck, checking the pulse, and ran his hand along the leg that was partly doubled under. Satisfied it wasn't broken, he eased it out and looked to the injuries to the head and face. Bruising to the left temple and a gash above the left eye, where the blood was coming from. Dillon rolled back an eyelid. Pupil constricted, which meant the nervous system was functioning okay. He cupped both hands under the head and very slowly brought it to a more natural position.

'Kenny, get pillows, cushions on one end of the sofa, bowl of iced water. Come on, lad, move it! Phil, out of the way, get the TV off.'

'Shall I call Gran?' asked Kenny in a quivering voice. 'Dad?'

'No, Pm here, I'll take care of her.'

'You pushed her down the stairs,' Phil said, snivelling.

'No, I didn't, son, she fell.' Dillon slid his arms underneath his wife. 'Now move away. Get out of my way…'

Phil's chin wobbled. He sucked in a huge gulp of air and his mouth opened wide.

'Phil, you stop that!' Dillon commanded, lifting Susie in his arms. 'Get out of my way!' He carried her through.

In the tiny back room he rented above a Bengali food store just off Lower Clapton Road, Harry was preparing his evening meal. This entailed the removal from the Tesco bag of the dinner on a tray for one – chicken and mushroom pie, sweetcorn, mashed potatoes, gravy – and the insertion of same into the microwave which stood on the small varnished table. Set the timer for eight minutes, and hey presto.

While he waited, Harry busied himself. From his bergen he took out nine separate components wrapped in dark green dusters and laid them in a row next to the microwave. The 40-watt bulb in the bedside lamp gave him barely sufficient light to work by, not that it actually mattered. He could assemble an M16 Armalite AR-15 blindfold, and had, too many times to count. He loved the feel of the lightly-oiled precision-engineered sections, slotting smoothly and easily into place with a satisfying metallic click. Call the Yanks all you want to, but they knew how to make a bloody good weapon. Gas operated, rotary locking mechanism, the M16's small calibre 5.56 mm cartridge didn't suit all tastes, but it could stop a body stone cold dead in the market at anything up to 400 metres. And Harry intended being a damn sight closer than that. Like, say, ten feet.

He hefted the assembled rifle, just over three kilos unloaded, and balanced it on his broad palm. Lovely piece of machinery.

The bell pinged. Harry took out his steaming dinner, savouring the smell of hot gravy. 'Bloody marvellous,' he murmured, rubbing his hands together, reaching into his bergen for knife, fork, spoon.

The break was to the left forearm, the X-ray revealed, which considering that two inches lower it would have been the more complicated wrist alignment, was good news, so the doctor said.

The facial injuries looked bad, but they were superficial, he assured Dillon. Her arm in plaster, supported in a stockinette sling, Dillon pushed Susie in a wheelchair to the car, Kenny and Phil tightly gripping either side, Mum's personal bodyguard.

Back home he took Susie up first, made sure she was comfortable, and then got the boys bedded down. They were both dead on their feet, and Phil was off the instant his head touched the pillow. Dillon tucked the duvet round Kenny in the top bunk and switched off the lamp. Standing in the wedge of light from the landing, Dillon's gaze moved slowly over the wall of photographs. All his lads were there, singly and in groups. All the faces in all the places. Belize, Ulster, Cyprus, Oman, Falklands, Pen-y-Fan. Jimmy Hammond, No. 2 Dress, lounging outside the NAAFI at The Depot. Dillon touched the photo, remembering the day, almost the minute, it had been taken. Two weeks prior to the Ulster Tour '87. The old sweet-talking bastard…

'Is he fighting again, Dad?' inquired Kenny through a yawn. 'Uncle Jimmy?'

Dillon unpinned the photograph.

'Yes, he is, he's joined up with mercenaries,' Dillon said. He unpinned several more, collecting a sheaf of them. 'They're freelance – still soldiers, they just get paid better!'

Lastly he took down one of Steve Harris, added it to the pile.

Kenny had pulled the duvet over his head, Phil was fast asleep. Dillon went out and softly closed the door. From within, he could hear the sound of Kenny's crying, muffled under the duvet. Dillon turned away, the sheaf of memories in his hand, and moved silently along the landing to where Susie was sleeping.

She was lying on her back, breathing rhythmically, the pale blur of the plaster cast resting on top of the bedclothes. After watching her for several moments, Dillon backed out, easing the door to.

'I'm awake, Frank.'

Dillon came in and closed the door. He groped towards the bed, the room in darkness except for a faint spray of light on the ceiling from the streetlamps below. He sat on the opposite side to her, slightly hunched, the photographs crumpled in his hand.

'Susie…?' He hesitated and then went on, very subdued. 'I'm sorry for everything. The way I am, way I've been. Just that, I've had a lot on my mind… but, well, I made a decision, I'm going to put the past behind me because…' His voice sank to a husky whisper. 'You're the best thing that ever happened to me, and – and if I was to lose you -'

He bowed his head, face screwed up tight, tears squeezing out from under his eyelids.

'I don't want you to leave me,' Dillon said, weeping openly now, unashamedly. 'I love you, Susie.'

With her right hand she reached across, found his hand, held onto it.

Dillon wiped his face with his sleeve. 'Everything you say is right, I know it, and I guess I just, well, I won't listen because -' A small rueful smile into the darkness. 'Takin' orders from a woman, you know, it's tough for a bloke like me. I never had nothin', I think I joined up because I was nothin' – never passed an exam at school.'

'I know.'

'I've acted like a kid, stupid.'

'You deserved the break, Frank.'

Dillon looked at her. 'It doesn't mean anything without you. You want me to sleep downstairs?'

'No.'

Dillon held her hand tight. He said softly, 'I'll just turn all the lights off.'

Susie nodded and smiled, hearing him creeping down the stairs, light switches clicking off, and waiting for his soft footfall to return to the bedroom. He eased the door closed, and from half-lidded eyes she watched him take off his clothes. She didn't say a word, he always folded everything up neatly, and was meticulous about clean socks and underwear, he stuffed his dirty clothes into a basket by the dressing table. He stood naked in front of the mirror, his taut muscular body with the shades of the many tattoos over his back, his legs, his arms, even his hands, and there was a heart with her name, and their two boys' names entwined with his own.

Dillon eased back the duvet and slipped in beside her, leaving just a few inches between them, but it was a while before she felt his body heat closer, closer.

'Are you awake?'

'Yes,' she whispered, and he leaned up on his elbow, gently lifting a stray strand of her thick brown hair away from the bruise on her face.

'I love you, you do know that don't you?'

She met his dark eyes, and nodded, she could see him straining to find the right words to say. 'I… we lose each other a bit sometimes don't we?'

Again Susie nodded and he rested his head against her breast. 'I'm not hurting you am I?'

He could feel her heart beating, and he wanted her to hold him, but knew with her bad arm she couldn't.

'I can fix the nightdress, Frank, it'll look okay.'

He lifted his head, and gave the smile, the smile she so adored, childlike, innocent. 'Bugger the nightdress… all that matters is you and me, and we're okay aren't we?'

'Yes, yes we are…'

Susie had no knowledge of how long he lay close to her, or for how long he studied her face as the painkillers made her drift into a deep dreamless sleep. He scrutinised every pore, every contour of her lovely face, her lips slightly parted, her dark eyelashes, the same as Kenny's, thick, dark eyelashes, and her high sweeping cheeks, just like Phil's. His wife, their mother, his beloved. He knew it had to be over, he would start fresh in the morning, have a serious talk to Harry. It was not their business any more, and may God forgive him, he would bury the pact he had promised the dead boys, it was the living, his family, that mattered most in all the world to him, and he was not going to jeopardise their safety. He had almost lost Susie's love, he knew that, and to have used physical force on her was shameful, he would never do that again. He could feel that dark cloud lifting, perhaps it was just sleep slowly enveloping him, but he felt good, felt peaceful for the first time in many years.

CHAPTER 35

Start afresh, don't look back, what's past is past. The bright new philosophy according to Frank Dillon. The past had fucked up, so dump it in the trash bin and given the future a fighting chance.

And Dillon meant it, more determined than anything he'd ever done or attempted in his life before to make it work. Which meant (Susie was right, he knew it in his bones) that Stag Security had to be run by the book. Get the business up on its feet and they were off to a flying start.

Anyway, the signs looked good, because the office had never looked better, Harry with the Hoover on the go, Cliff mopping down the basement steps when Dillon showed up. He got an earful soon as he walked in.

'Oi! Wipe your feet, I just Hoovered there -' Harry jabbed a finger at Cliff, trailing in with a mop and bucket. 'An' you, take that bucket out into the yard.'

'Need new bog rolls,' Cliff put in. 'Stamps, coffee, tea and sugar, milk, an' we should keep a first-aid kit handy too. Aspirins, liver salts, stuff like that.'

Dillon was at the desk with a clean sheet of paper, pencil in hand. 'With Susie out of action I've got a bit of schleppin' to do with the kids, so I'm workin' out a rota.'

'I don't mind doin' nights,' Harry offered.

'Just a sec' Dillon wanted to start another clean sheet. 'I reckon I've been throwin' me weight around, an' we're all in this together, okay? So if I say somethin' you don't agree with… well…' He gestured vaguely.

'You'll give us a sock in the gob!' Harry grinned.

Cliff laughed and clanked outside with his bucket. Harry looped the cable to the Hoover, watching him go. He said confidentially, 'Hey, Frank, about that other matter. I'm handling it.'

Dillon was writing. Without looking up he gave a small, tight nod. Start afresh, don't look back, what's past is past. The pencil dug into the paper. He looked up sharply.

'Harry…!'

At the door, Harry turned, Hoover in hand.

Dillon stared at him. He shook his head. 'Nothin'.' He went back to his writing.

He'd been heading up a blind alley but now he could see light ahead. Dillon's feeling that things were changing – for the better – grew stronger each day. Work was coming in, they were even building up a small core of regular clients. He had the sense that a watershed had been passed, and that with hard graft and a bit of luck they were going to make it.

The first encouraging proof came just over a week later, and he couldn't get home quick enough to tell Susie about it. She was in the kitchen, putting food away in the fridge. Getting rid of the stockinette sling gave her some freedom of movement, but the cast was still an encumbrance. Dillon waltzed in, waving a folder.

'We're in profit – it's paying the cars, the rent and wages -!'

He swung her round, hugged her.

'You mean you can start paying me a wage?' Susie asked him with an impish grin.

Dillon gave her a look. 'You not workin' for Marway?'

'Just Stag Security-Taxi-Chauffeur,' she said firmly. She gently punched him under the chin with the plaster cast. This'll be off soon.'

Dillon laughed and gave her a smacker. On his way to answer the doorbell he sang out, 'Give you my word, you won't regret it!'

His terrific good mood lasted until he opened the door and saw Harry's face. More exactly, its set, closed expression, eyes fixed on his, unblinking. 'I wanna show you somethin'.' As Dillon's mouth tightened, Harry held up his hand. 'Hey, take it easy. Can I come in?' And when Dillon made no move, just stood there blocking the door, delved inside his jacket and produced two photostat images and held them up.

'These are the suspects. Take a look for yourself.'

Full face, left and right profiles, two men, early twenties, one with sideburns. Dillon barely glanced at them before shoving Harry onto the landing, well out of earshot. Harry caught his drift and had sense enough to keep his voice low.

'Guy on the second page, it's one of them, Frank. Wally's tip-off was legit.'

'Harry – I got to think about this.' Dillon rubbed his face, and then his head shot round as he heard Susie's voice calling, 'Is it Mum, Frank?'

He stuck his head in the door. 'No, love… just Harry,' and carefully pulled it shut.

Harry waited a couple of moments, studying Dillon's face. 'You don't have to get involved,' he said, slow, deliberate, the meaning made stronger because of it. 'But you started this, Frank, not me, you.'

'I dunno.' Dillon looked at the door. 'I don't know, I need time…'

'I don't have it, they could move on any day.' Harry had said his piece, Dillon knew the score, and he turned to go. Dillon grabbed his arm, pulled him round. His whisper was harsh.

'You know where he is?'

Harry looked into Dillon's eyes. He nodded. 'I just needed to be sure.' He thrust the photostats into Dillon's hand. 'Keep 'em, tell me tomorrow,' he said, and went down the stairway.

Dillon leaned against the wall. He rested his eyes for a minute, aware of his heart beating rapidly. Slowly he opened them and stared down at the two faces. Early twenties. Long dark hair. Sideburns: Leather jacket. Dillon leaned over the railings, waiting to see Harry across the courtyard below. He whistled and Harry looked upwards. No words passed between them, Dillon simply gave him the signal to wait.

The closing credits of a cops and robbers series were rolling up as Dillon popped his head into the living-room. He said brightly, 'I won't be too late. Kids are asleep!'

'What is it?' Susie asked, feet propped up on the couch. 'Security work?'

'Yeah!'

'Is it cash or…'

Dillon cleared his throat. 'Cash,' he said decisively. 'Night, sweetheart.' He went out, closing the front door so it didn't slam. Susie flicked the remote control. The chimes of Big Ben boomed out, News at Ten just starting.

Harry had cased the house that afternoon. Couldn't be more perfect, he assured Dillon. Run-down neighbourhood, poor street lightning, gasworks wall at one end so there was no through traffic. Derelict place directly opposite, ideal for cover. They took up positions, peering across the darkened street through a window-frame with a few shards of glass in it. Both were kitted out for night ops: black sweaters, old combat jackets, black woollen ski hats, the faithful Pumas that had seen action on Heartbreak Hill. And Harry had the Armalite, which had seen action with the Gurkhas in Brunei and the Far East. Dillon got the stomach cramps just watching him checking it over, as gentle and loving with it as a mother with her new-born babe.

'If there's anybody in there, they're crawlin' around in the dark,' Dillon decided, straining his eyes to see. He craned forward. 'No they bloody ain't – you see it, front room, right-hand side? Somethin' flickered.'

Harry was already on the move, rifle inside his combat jacket, held by the butt, pointing to the ground. 'Let's take a closer look,' he growled.

A child of six could have picked the back door lock with his Meccano plastic screwdriver. Dillon sidled in, ski mask down over his face, two ragged slits for the eyes. The kitchen was filthy and stank to high heaven. He had to watch where he stepped, there was all sorts of junk littered about the place. More a doss house than a safe house. Harry followed, treading with an incredible feline lightness and agility for such a big man.

In total silence they moved from the kitchen into the short passage leading to the front room. Blue light flickered under the door, and they could hear the muted burble of the television. Dillon touched his chest and pointed upstairs. Harry nodded. He flattened himself against the wall adjacent to the door, the rifle held slantwise across his body. Dillon went up, testing each tread before committing his weight to it.

He trod even more carefully on the bare dusty floorboards of the front bedroom, aware that a single creak would alert whoever was directly beneath him. There wasn't a stick of furniture. He knelt, and using hands as well as eyes, made sure he had it right. Three sleeping bags. A plastic holdall with a broken strap contained tee-shirts, underpants, socks, shaving cream, razor.

The bathroom was a haven for dirty towels. Two on the floor, two more stuffed over a rail, three or four in the bottom of the stained old tub. Lying in the greasy soap residue on the splash rim of the washbasin were three toothbrushes and one tube of toothpaste squeezed to within an inch of its life. He turned away and then paused, aware of a heavy subterranean thudding. It was his heart. His scalp was prickly with sweat. He hissed in a breath and crept out.

Harry hadn't moved a muscle. He stood flattened to the wall, watching Dillon slowly and silently descend. Then nodded as Dillon held up three fingers. With twenty rounds in the mag he could take out three Irish bastards and still have enough to spare for their slags and brats. Wipe out the Irish nation, that was Harry's final solution.

He went suddenly tense, and Dillon froze on the stairs. The man in the room hacked out a cough and did a couple of ferocious encores. Dillon counted to five and took another step down, letting go a breath, when the door opened and the man came out. In the poor light coming from the TV, Dillon registered only that he was young, with long hair, wearing a scruffy jacket over an open-necked shirt. He saw Dillon first, and started to backtrack into the room, grabbing the edge of the door to slam it shut. Harry sprang round from the wall, smashed the butt of the rifle into the door, knocking it back on its hinges. He swung the rifle round, levelling it. Dillon jumped the rest of the stairs. He landed in the hallway, arms up ready to dive forward and grapple with the man, when the rifle blasted. The man uttered no sound. There was a crash, a thump, and then, save for the TV burbling to itself, silence.

He was lying half on his side, face down to the carpet. One hand still clutched a grimy handkerchief. In falling he'd upset a little two-bar electric fire, a flex leading from it to the light bulb socket, which was why the room was in semi-darkness.

'He grabbed the bloody thing, Frank,' Harry complained. He ejected the empty shell, picked it up and put it in his pocket. 'Is it him?'

Dillon checked the pulse in the man's neck, but there was really no need to. His arm was flung out, away from the body, and there was a hole in the left armpit, right next to the heart. That's why he hadn't uttered a squeak.

'You've killed him.' Dillon pushed the body over onto its back. Slowly he straightened up. 'Oh my God,' he said, 'this isn't him. It's not him!'

Harry leaned over to see for himself. He squatted down on his haunches, supporting himself with the rifle. He glanced up. 'Where the hell you goin'?'

Dillon was at the door. He said, 'There were three sleepin' bags, they could be back.' He jerked his thumb savagely. 'Leave him, just leave him!' and was gone.

Harry laid the Armalite down. The dead man had nothing on him except a cheap wallet with a few quid in it. Harry put it in his pocket. He tucked the rifle under his arm and stood up, about to follow Dillon. He looked at the electric fire on its side. A thin wisp of smoke rose up where the bars had already singed the strip of carpet. With his foot, Harry pushed the fire closer to the dead man, and with a nudge, closer still, until it was touching. He reached down and picked up a bottle of Powers on the floor next to the armchair, about quarter full. He took a big mouthful, glancing towards the door, and spurted out a spray of whisky straight onto the bars. There was a whoosh of flame. The dead man's jacket sleeve ignited. Harry tossed the bottle on top of the funeral pyre and scarpered.

Dillon leaned over the washbasin, splashing cold water into his face. He blinked the water from his eyes and stared at his hands, shaking uncontrollably. His face in the mirror was ashen. He reached for the towel. From the office along the passage he could hear Harry's voice: 'Sorry to ring so late, Wally, but we're on an all-night job. Na! Bit of security work, they can't afford a dog.'

When Dillon came in, drying his hands, Harry was standing at the desk, laughing into the phone. On the blotter in front of him lay the photostats, the two images, full face, left-right profiles, stark under the lamplight. 'Just wanted to make sure you're on for some work tomorrow… yeah, G'night.' He hung up.

'You get shot of that friggin' rifle, take it back where it came from, just get the thing out,' Dillon said. He tossed the towel down and indicated the photostats with a curt nod, his eyes very dark in his pale face. 'No more. I mean it, Harry, and I'm warnin' you… Burn it, do it.'

'What's the matter, Frank, lost your bottle?'

'Yeah, maybe I have.' Dillon looked away, scowling. 'We just killed a bloke. I dunno how it makes you feel -'

'I feel fine,' Harry interrupted. He looked fine too, blue eyes bright, high colour in his cheeks, adrenalin surging through him. 'An' I sorted Wally, he thinks we're on an all-nighter.'

'Well I don't feel fine, I feel like shit. You want to keep going, then you get out of the firm. I got too much to lose, an' I'm not losin' it for you, for…' hardly hesitating '… my lads. It's over, Harry.'

'Over for you, over for them,' Harry said, a harsh edge to his voice. 'They were just kids – one of 'em, Phil, he'd only enlisted six months.'

Dillon went up, grabbed a fistful of Harry's combat jacket, his eyes blazing. 'You're using them, Harry, don't do this to me! We're in civvies, we got no right to take the law into our own hands.'

'This is Army business -'

'Bullshit. And we're not in the Army, we're in civvies.'

'They don't wear a uniform neither,' Harry said stolidly, the immovable object, the implacable force.

'But it's their war, it's not ours, not any more. It's over, and if you want to lose all this -' Dillon gestured round ' – then we'll buy you out. I won't let you – or that scum – drag me down.'

Dillon stared into the blue eyes. Harry stared back. A moment's silence passed, which lasted several ages, until Dillon said:

'So I'm asking you, let it go.'

He couldn't or wouldn't. Or would he?

'I can't do it, Harry, I'm out, man.' The towel lay over the back of the chair, where Dillon had tossed it. Now he was throwing it in again, and he didn't care that Harry knew it, or that Harry might call him traitor, coward, betrayer. The lads were dead, let that be an end to it. What's past is past.

It took a long time, each word had to be dragged from his heels upwards, landing like lead in his chest, words that strangled him, he was so charged with emotion. Not weeping, they were not those kind of tears that trickled down Dillon's cheeks and glistened in the line of his scar, to Harry it was not even Dillon speaking, the depth of sorrow was like the aftermath of a hard punch in the gut.

'I want out Harry, let me go. I have too much to lose, I'm finished with this, God forgive me… I want out!'

Harry straightened his shoulders. He thought he knew all there was to know about Dillon, but he'd learned something more. Another depth to the man he'd never suspected, through all their years together. Another Sergeant Dillon entirely. He didn't know whether it was an added strength, or a hidden weakness, but none of that seemed to matter, and he clasped Dillon tightly in an embrace that said he didn't care, that it was over, done with, finished.

'You're the Guv'nor,' Harry said.