Ultimatum

Eighty-three

I used my stick for support as I walked across the park. I’d been out of hospital just over a week, but this was my first time outside on my own. If my doctor knew what I was doing, he’d blow a gasket. According to him, I had to take everything very, very slowly. It was, he claimed, a miracle I’d made it through at all. I’d lost three-quarters of my blood by the time they got me to the hospital and, apparently, had died twice on the operating table, although I don’t remember any out-of-body experiences or seeing a bright light at the end of the tunnel, or any of that kind of thing. In fact, I slept through the whole lot.

The medical people hadn’t wanted me to leave hospital. Apparently, I was only 50 per cent into my recovery and they’d wanted me to remain under observation for another week at least so they could monitor my progress. But, to be honest, I’ve never been one for hospitals, and the one I was in reminded me too much of prison, so I’d exercised my citizen’s rights and walked. Or hobbled at least.

Also, there was something I needed to do. A wrong that needed righting.

The weather was sunny and unseasonably warm, and the world had returned to normal after February’s seismic events. In fact if Cecil and Cain had still been alive, they’d have been mortified to see how little long-term effect all their actions had had. The Shard was being repaired and would soon be back to its former glory; the government might have tottered a little on the day, but it hadn’t fallen; and there’d been no race riots on the streets. In fact, people had pulled together in the face of the barbarity that had been inflicted on them. The whole bloody day had been a colossal waste of lives, including very nearly my own. If Mike Bolt hadn’t found me when he did there’s no way I would have made it, and for that I’d be forever grateful to him.

Around me, the park was bustling with activity. A group of schoolkids were playing a loud, anarchic game of football; people were walking dogs; others just sat soaking up the sun’s rays; young mothers chatted and laughed as they pushed prams; an old couple walked hand in hand. This was what it was all about. Ordinary life.

And yet, in truth, I’d never been able to settle back into it since leaving behind the army, and the two foreign wars I’d fought, all those years ago. The real world — this place of reality TV shows, anti-social behaviour, obesity and obsession with Z-list celebrities and the weather — seemed so utterly meaningless when compared with the things I’d done and seen, and the friends I’d lost or who’d been maimed for life by the RPGs and the roadside bombs. These people enjoying the park in the sunshine knew nothing of what was going on in hellholes like Afghanistan, in their name, or of the sacrifices that were being made every day on their behalf. They didn’t even really know what was going on all around them, of the tide of crime being committed by a vast and ever-growing army of thugs whose activities were only just being kept in check by an overstretched and embattled police force. These people lived in a cocoon.

But, you know, maybe that’s the best way to be. I no longer felt bitter about the way things were. People had been good to me since the events of a month earlier. I’d been treated as a hero in the media — the man who’d infiltrated the terrorist cell and narrowly escaped death when the terrorists had turned on him. Somehow, too, there’d been no mention of the gun battle at the scrapyard with the Albanians, which was being looked at as a separate murder inquiry. The investigating officers from CTC seemed to accept my story that I’d only seen the Stinger after it had been obtained and had no idea where it had come from. A businessman hearing about my plight had offered me the use of his company apartment rent-free for as long as I needed it. Gina and Maddie had visited or spoken to me every day, Gina telling me how proud she was of the part I’d played in trying to stop the missile attack. Incredibly, it turned out she’d been in the Shard when it had been attacked, and had only narrowly escaped death herself. I’d been shocked to the core when I heard that. If anything had happened to her, it would have killed me, given my own involvement in procuring the Stinger.

It wasn’t the only shock I’d received regarding Gina either. It also turned out that she’d been inside the Shard with the man she’d been seeing for the past few months. I can’t tell you how much it hurt when she told me that. It was like a physical blow. At the time, I didn’t say a word. I simply turned round, walked out of my old house, and didn’t stop walking for about two hours afterwards, trying to come to terms with the fact that my marriage was now irreversibly over.

But you know what they say about time and healing, and since then I’ve at least got more used to the idea. The important thing is I’ve still got Maddie, and as long as she continues to stay in my life, nothing else really matters.

There was a bank of three payphones on the pavement just beyond the park. Two of them were Phonecard only but one still took coins, and that was the one I went to. I dialled a number that I knew by heart and waited.

It rang a long time — at least a minute, maybe even two — before it was finally picked up at the other end.

‘Who’s this?’ growled a male voice.

‘I’ve got a message for Nicholas Tyndall.’

‘I don’t know anyone of that name.’

‘Yes you do. You tell him that the man who set up LeShawn Lambden for that robbery a month ago was one of his crack dealers, Alfonse Webber.’

The voice at the other end was silent for a moment. ‘How do you know this?’

‘Because I was one of the robbers, and the man who gave me the information was Alfonse Webber. He was paid five grand to help me set up the robbery. He told me all about Tyndall’s eleven crackhouses; the vehicles LeShawn used when he was out collecting money; who he travelled with when he was doing a collection. All of it. Check him out.’

‘If you’re lying-’

‘I’m not.’

I put down the phone and limped away, knowing I’d probably sentenced Webber to death. Nicholas Tyndall wasn’t the kind of man to tolerate people trying to ruin his business, especially when they were trusted employees. It was why he’d lasted as long as he had as one of north London’s premier crack dealers. The irony was that Webber, one of the biggest lowlifes I’d ever met, was actually totally innocent of this particular crime. I’d used knowledge about Tyndall gained during my time as a cop to carry out the robbery of LeShawn, and I knew Webber worked in one of his crackhouses, which meant he was easy to set up.

I didn’t feel bad about it. Why should I have done? Webber was a violent, cowardly criminal who’d used the very system he cared so little about to put me behind bars.

I looked over at the people in the park going about their daily lives, and felt the sun on my back. My revenge was complete now. The past was the past, and it was time to start thinking about the future.

For the first time in a while it felt good to be alive.