Siege

Ninety-five

IT WAS A mild afternoon for December, but raining steadily, as it had been for days, and already very dark, as the mourners filed slowly out of the ancient church. Beyond the wall stood a very wet-looking camera crew – the only sign that the funeral of Martin Geoffrey Dalston was any more than just a run-of-the-mill event. Dalston was by no means the first victim of the terrorist attack on the Stanhope to be buried, but there was a rumour that he was in line for a posthumous bravery award, which probably explained the presence of the camera crew.

Scope had stood at the back of the church, keeping well out of sight, and consequently he was one of the first people out. He wore a beanie hat with a scarf pulled up over half his face, so that no one would recognize him, but unfortunately the walking stick he was having to use, courtesy of the bullet in his arse, was a bit of a giveaway. During the week he’d spent in hospital the police and the staff had kept the media at bay, but since then everyone had been trying to get some sort of comment from him. Scope knew he was a big story – the guy who’d taken on the terrorists and saved the lives of dozens of hostages. They’d dug up and picked over his past. His eighteen-year military service, including two tours each in Iraq and Afghanistan; marriage to his childhood sweetheart, and fatherhood at nineteen; the affairs; the messy divorce; and, most poignant of all, the tragedy of his daughter.

That was the part Scope hated about it the most. Dredging up what had happened to Mary Ann for the entertainment of the masses. He didn’t want anyone knowing about her. It was none of their business, and never would be. He was surprised, though, that the media hadn’t delved further into what had happened after her death. If they had, they’d have discovered an explosive story that would have satisfied even the most jaded reader. Maybe one day they would, and he’d be found out. But there was no point in him worrying about that now. He’d done what he had to do.

It was a two-hundred-yard walk back to where he’d parked his car, and since he was still out of practice at walking with pins in his leg, his progress was slow. He kept his head down as other mourners overtook him, and was relieved that he wasn’t seen by the camera crew. He’d looked for Abby and Ethan in the church but didn’t think they’d been there, which was probably for the best, although he’d’ve liked to see Ethan again one more time. He’d received a card from them when he was in hospital, thanking him for all he’d done. It had had a Florida postmark, and Ethan had enclosed a picture he’d drawn of Scope as an action man with immense biceps, an ill-fitting suit, and a very big gun. Scope had put it on the table by his hospital bed, and he had it now, packed up among his belongings.

As he reached the car and felt in his pocket for the keys, someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned round and saw that it was the blonde manager from the hotel whose name, he’d found out afterwards, was Elena Serenko. She was wearing a black dress underneath a long dark raincoat and black headscarf, and she reminded Scope of a young Bette Davis.

‘Hello,’ she said, with a shy smile. ‘I thought I saw you inside the church.’

‘I was trying to keep a low profile. I guess it didn’t work.’

‘The cane doesn’t help. How are your injuries?’

‘I’m on the mend. I was very lucky. I got hit twice and no major internal damage, but I’m going to be walking with this for a while yet.’

‘I wanted to say thank you again for what you did for us in the hotel.’

‘Thank you too. You helped save my life.’

There was an awkward silence, and Scope had the idea that she wanted to say something else.

‘Are you going back to the wake?’ she asked.

Scope shook his head. ‘No. I only came to pay my respects. He was a good man.’

‘Do you know I only knew him for a few hours but I feel like I found out so much about him. Does that make sense?’

‘You can find out a lot about someone in that time. Especially in difficult circumstances.’

‘Martin told me he had a girlfriend once. Someone he’d stayed with in the hotel many years ago, who was the love of his life, and who he hadn’t seen in more than twenty years. It’s mad, I know, but I kept looking for her today. I wanted to talk to her.’ Elena suddenly looked embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m standing here in the pouring rain telling you all this.’

‘It’s OK.’

There was another awkward silence, this one longer. Scope was about to say something when Elena started speaking again. ‘We had a guest in one of the suites at the Stanhope called Mr Miller. He’d been there for a while, and I have to admit, I didn’t like him very much. On the day of the terrorist attack, he was killed, along with his two bodyguards. But the thing is, the terrorists didn’t kill them. I know that because I heard them talking about it.’ She frowned. ‘I don’t know how to say this,’ she continued, looking embarrassed again, ‘but did you know anything about him?’

For a moment, Scope wanted to tell her everything. But he knew it would put Elena in a terrible position. He smiled. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t help you with that one. I don’t know how I’d have fitted it in.’ He looked at her steadily, and he could tell she knew he was lying. ‘Have you told the police about it?’

She looked down. ‘No. The police have plenty to keep them busy as it is, and anyway, I’m off to Australia with my fiancé very soon.’ She smiled, and looked him in the eye. ‘We’re about to start a new life.’

He smiled back. ‘Good luck. If I had my time again, I think I’d do the same thing.’

This time there were no awkward pauses. She thanked him almost formally, and said goodbye.

Scope watched her go, suddenly feeling very lonely. He thought of Mary Ann and the trail of revenge that had led to that fateful day at the Stanhope Hotel.

When she’d died of an overdose of unusually pure heroin aged barely eighteen, the news had devastated him. His ex-wife had died six months later in a car accident, hitting a tree on a country road late at night. Scope had often wondered whether it was suicide, and concluded that it probably had been. He could easily have gone the same way too, almost did on more than one occasion when the pain and the loneliness had got too much.

But slowly he’d pulled himself together, and as he’d done so, he’d begun to feel a new emotion. Anger. He realized, almost with surprise, that he wanted to make those who’d contributed to Mary Ann’s death pay, and he’d set about planning how to make this happen.

It was two years from the moment he put a bullet in the man who sold the fatal dose to when he finally got to the individual at the top of the pile.

Frank Miller was running his business from a suite in the Stanhope, ever since a messy divorce of his own. Miller didn’t get his hands dirty. A middle-aged businessman and entrepreneur, he had a colourful background, which included prison for fraud in his youth, but he’d pulled himself up by his bootstraps and become a multi-millionaire with interests in construction, retail and property. He was also one of the biggest importers of heroin into the UK, and dealt directly with contacts in Turkey and Afghanistan.

Scope had spent months planning that particular killing, and it had all gone incredibly smoothly. Neither Miller nor his bodyguards had been expecting a thing, and they’d died within seconds of each other. Even so, Scope had still expected to get caught for this particular crime. His luck had held well for a long time, but three killings in a big London hotel was always going to be a risk too far. And yet, because of everything else that had happened in the Stanhope that day, their deaths were being treated as directly connected to the terrorist attack.

So now, three years after her own death, Mary Ann could finally rest in peace.

He took a last look up and down the road, shivering against the cold, wondering whether he would ever be brought to book for what he’d done. In the end, it was out of his hands, and therefore not something worth spending too much time contemplating. Instead, he slowly got back into his car, threw his stick on the seat and, with a deep breath, drove away from the church, and the mourners, and the past.