The Hawk Is Dead

55

Saturday 25 November 2023

Geoffrey Bailey, small, reedy, immaculately dressed, stood in freezing cold wind, in the darkness outside the Garden Entrance to the West Wing of Buckingham Palace. There was just the faintest glow of light from a handful of windows — The King’s energy-saving policies were being scrupulously implemented.

As forecast, the sunny weather had ended abruptly this afternoon. The temperature had plunged further, and the rain was chucking it down as if it had been saving up to do this for days. It felt and sounded like the blasts of shotgun pellets on his umbrella, which he was struggling with in the fierce, gusting wind — and the rain also came sideways at him beneath it, drenching his trousers.

He looked at his watch, the very showy Bulgari that one of his lovers had bought him recently, and cursed, because fancy though it was, he couldn’t see the dial to tell the time in the dark. Instead, he checked his phone. Ten minutes late. His Gucci loafers were sodden.

Was this going to be a no-show?

A sudden gust, stronger than all the others, turned his umbrella inside out.

‘Shit!’ he yelled, as the rain pelted his head and he struggled to get the damned thing working again.

‘Y’all right?’ A Geordie voice spoke out of the darkness.

‘Where have you been? You said 7 p.m. sharp.’ Bailey’s voice was petulant, but he knew he held all four aces in his hand. ‘I’m bloody freezing.’

‘Yeah, well at least you got a brolly. I’m on lates tonight — I’ve got to patrol the grounds without one and I’ll be freezing and sodden all evening. I’ll get you out of the cold in a few minutes. So just keep your hair on, sweet cheeks, don’t want your wig flying off in this hooley, do we?’

‘I do NOT wear a wig.’

‘Oh right, it just looks like one, does it?’

Ignoring the comment, too cold and wet to banter, Geoffrey Bailey said, ‘You’ve got my medal?’

‘Yeah,’ Smoke said. ‘I’ve got your medal. Sir Tommy felt bad you’d been overlooked and got it sanctioned. Because he respects you, like all the Royal Household does.’

‘I’ve done over fifteen years of loyal and faithful service. It’s no more than I deserve,’ Geoffrey Bailey opined.

‘Oh no, you deserve much more. So much more! Everyone knows that.’

‘Really?’ He preened at the unexpected compliment.

‘Oh yes,’ Jon Smoke replied. The rain was drenching him, plastering his close-cropped hair to his head. But his police uniform with its heavy attachments of torch, taser, baton and phone, in addition to the weight of his stab vest, kept some of it at bay. However, the rain wasn’t his problem. This little shit of a footman, Geoffrey Bailey, was.

He wouldn’t be for much longer.

‘Let’s see it then!’

Smoke pulled it out of one of the pouches in his uniform, and held the round silver medal up in the darkness, dangling it from the ribbon.

Geoffrey Bailey hit the torch button on his phone and stepped forward. Attached to the blue and red striped ribbon was a round silver medal bearing the legend EIIR and the late Queen Elizabeth’s face.

Disappointed, Bailey said, ‘But this is an old one. The King has a new one out, I’ve seen it.’

‘They’re using up the old ones on useless twats like you,’ Smoke said.

Then, before Bailey could respond, Smoke shot a karate ridge hand strike into Bailey’s throat with such force it shattered his larynx. The footman reeled, dropping his phone and letting go of his umbrella as he fell backwards. Smoke was kneeling over him an instant later, and still dangling the medal.

Bailey tried to speak, but all that came out was a gasping crackle and a few partially formed words that sounded like an alien language.

‘It may be old but it’s still a nice medal, you should learn to be grateful. You should be choked to receive it, and you will be,’ Smoke said, briefly illuminating it with the beam of Bailey’s phone torch. Then with his gloved right hand, he shoved his fingers into Bailey’s mouth and prised it open, at the same time, with his left hand, ramming the medal and ribbon as far down the footman’s gullet as he could. And then held it there.

And continued holding it as Bailey struggled for breath. Fighting desperately, flailing his arms at him. Growing weaker by the second.

And weaker.

‘I’m sorry you don’t like your medal, Geoffrey,’ Smoke said. ‘It’s a nice one. A lot of people would give their life for a medal like that.’

He kept the pressure on, holding that medal deep. And kept holding until the footman was totally limp.

Then he slipped his arms around his waist and lifted him up. ‘You said you were cold. Let’s get you out of this nasty weather.’