Watchman

Nineteen

‘Ah yes, Mr. Scott.’

And with that the courier ticked his name off the list. Belfast airport was near empty, which was fine by Miles; it was also, to his surprise, very modern and very clean. He didn’t know quite what he had been expecting, an old RAF-style hangar perhaps, ringed by steel. But this was not like arriving in a country at war. No soldiers paraded their weapons. The atmosphere was... well, ordinary. Perhaps he would have an uneventful few days after all. If only he could get away from Mrs. Nightingale.

‘Coo-ee, Mr. Scott! Over here!’

And here she was, in the ample flesh, wading toward him as though through water, her hand waving like a distress signal.

‘Coo-ee!’

She had been sitting next to him in the Trident, humming along to Handel’s Fireworks Music and crunching barley sugars with real ferocity. To her questions, he had decided that he was a widower and a civil servant. Wrong answers both: she was a widow (her wedding ring had tricked him) and a civil servant too, executive officer, Inland Revenue. He wondered now why he had not played the old card of pleading homosexuality. Perhaps he still could. What he could not do was retrieve the past excruciating hour of tales about the tax collector’s office. His head throbbed like a gashed thumb. When, oh when, was he supposed to slip away?

‘Mr. Scott, have you asked him about the baggage?’

‘Not yet, Mrs. Nightingale.’

‘No, silly, call me Millicent.’

‘Millicent.’

‘Well, go ahead and ask.’

The courier, however, saved him some small embarrassment by answering the unspoken question.

‘We’ll go and collect it now, shall we?’

‘We’ll go and collect it now, Mr. Scott,’ repeated Mrs. Nightingale, putting her arm through his. Miles wondered if the courier were in on the deception. Everything that had seemed so well planned in London now seemed tenuous and half baked. He might yet end up on a tour of Ireland. Seven days and nights with Mrs. Nightingale.

Outside, baggage collected, they boarded a minibus. The country around them was darkening, as though the wattage of the bulb were fading. On their way out of the airport, Miles noted a checkpoint where every second car was being stopped and searched. Speed bumps bumped the minibus out onto a main road. There were no signs visibly welcoming them to Northern Ireland, but pasted onto a road sign was a Union Jack poster with the legend ULSTER SAYS NO printed in large black letters. Miles closed his eyes, hoping to feign sleep. Mrs. Nightingale, a little later, placed her hand on his.

The hotel was unpromising. His room was a single (giving Mrs. Nightingale a whole range of options), the bar was dowdy and full of nonresidents, and the view from his window was of a flat rooftop where the matted carcass of a cat lay as though it had died of boredom. It might have been London. In fact, it was much quieter than London, for not even the wailing of a police siren could be heard.

There was a knock at his door. Not Mrs. Nightingale, for he doubted very much whether she would have bothered to knock.

‘Come in.’

It was the courier.

‘Mr. Scott, sir. You’ll be leaving us first thing in the morning, so get an early night if you can. Someone will be here with a car for you. They’ll come to the door, so make sure you’re alone, eh?’ The courier gave an exaggerated wink. He was the sort of despairingly jolly fellow so beloved of holiday-package groups. He did not look like a member of the services.

‘Do me a favor, will you?’

‘Yes, Mr. Scott?’

‘Try and keep Mrs. Nightingale out of my hair.’

The courier smiled and nodded. ‘Understood,’ he said, and was gone.

Miles settled back on the creaking bed and flipped through a magazine which, having noticed that every traveler was carrying some sort of reading matter, he had bought at Heathrow. It was filled with book reviews. Not a word on Coleoptera, though. He supposed that he could try the bar again, but was afraid of what he might find there. He recalled Mrs. Nightingale’s clammy hand on his, and he shuddered.

There was no telephone in the bedroom, but there was a battered pay phone at the end of the hall. He would call Sheila. He slipped out of the room in his stocking feet and padded through the deserted corridor. He had only the one ten-pence piece, but that would be sufficient to reassure himself that Sheila was all right... Did he mean all right, or did he mean chaste? He wasn’t sure. He dialed his home number, but there was no reply. Well, she could be anywhere, he supposed. He dialed his own number, the one for his study telephone. Still no answer. Finally, he decided to call Billy Monmouth, just, so he assured himself, to hear a friendly voice. This time the call was answered. Miles pushed home the coin. It stayed in, but nothing connected.

‘Blast this thing.’ He slapped the front of the apparatus. ‘Damn and blast it.’ The telephone went dead. He had lost his only coin.

‘Mr. Scott!’

‘Mrs. Nightingale.’

‘Millicent, Mr. Scott. You must call me Millicent. Who were you phoning?’

‘Trying to reach my son.’

‘You didn’t tell me you had a son, Mr. Scott!’

‘Oh?’

‘Let’s go down to the bar and you can tell me all about him.’

She was already tugging at his arm.

‘I don’t have any shoes on, Millicent.’

She looked down at his feet, then laughed.

‘In that case,’ she said, ‘we’ll just go along to your room and you can put your shoes on. I’ve been dying to see your room anyway. Come on.’

In the small, smoky lounge bar, the hotel guests were being treated to jokes and songs by a local, who, unshaven, his cap askew on his sweat-beaded head, seemed irrepressible. Miles noticed, however, that the man’s eyes remained as sharp as a fox’s. He was working hard and methodically to win the free drinks which were his right, and he wasn’t about to let any of the pale-faced guests escape. He swayed before them like a snake before its prey, seeming to entertain when in fact it was already digesting its victims.

Everybody laughed, of course, but it was a laughter colored by fear. They could all see that this was a potentially dangerous man, and they would gaze at the barman when they could, pleading with their eyes: make him stop.

Miles sipped his lager. Ordinarily, he would have drunk Guinness, but he did not wish to appear patronizing.

‘Go on, Declan, tell them the one about...’

Yes, Declan needed his prompters, needed the whispered reminders from the wings.

‘Remember, Declan, that time when you...’

In truth, several of the party could not make out one word of Declan’s stories, and their smiles were the most enthusiastic of all. Mrs. Nightingale was one of these. Her laugh was a garish parody of fun. Well, at least she’s quiet, thought Miles, thankful for the smallest of mercies.

It was not quite dawn when, a light sleeper at the best of times, Miles heard a key turn in the lock, his door open, and saw two shadowy figures enter the room. By then, he was already out of bed, keen to appear efficient. ‘Packed and ready to go, gentlemen,’ he whispered. The men seemed satisfied. Miles was already dressed, and had only to slip on his shoes. One of the men lifted his case, then headed out of the door, checking to left and right as he did. The other man motioned for Miles to go ahead of him, and relocked the door behind them. Within ninety seconds, they were out into the chill darkness. A Ford Granada was revving up beside the pavement. Miles was ushered into the back of the car beside the first man, who held his suitcase on his lap. The second man, getting into the passenger seat, motioned for the driver to move off. Nobody had said a word, except for Miles’s smug little whispered announcement. He regretted having said anything now: silence should have been maintained. Then, in sudden panic, he thought of another potential and horrific error: how did he know who these men were? They could be anyone at all. He had not asked, had seen no identification, had not heard their accents. But the city streets outside told him to be calm. Morning was approaching, bringing with it a waking serenity. He would wait and see, that was all. He would sit back and say nothing and trust to the fates.

After all, it was time for a definite change in his luck.

‘Mr. Scott?’

‘If you say so,’ said Miles.

‘Well, that’s what your lot told us.’

‘Then I suppose it’s true.’

‘I’m Chesterton.’ The man thrust forward his hand, his eyes still glued to the papers he held. Miles shook the hand.

‘Any relation?’ he asked, smiling.

‘To whom, Mr. Scott?’

‘Never mind, nothing really.’

Chesterton looked up at Miles suspiciously, then, seating himself at his desk, continued to read the papers. Miles examined the room. It was much like the room in which he had been interrogated by the Scottish policeman. A table, three chairs, wastepaper basket, one barred window.

‘Is this a police station?’ he asked.

‘Sort of.’ Chesterton looked up again. ‘The normal differences between army and police tend to blur a bit over here. It’s a lesson you’d be wise to learn, Mr. Scott. Everything here is just like reality, just like London, but distorted slightly, out of kilter. Something can look very safe, very ordinary, and then blow up in your face. A taxi driver turns into a gunman, a discotheque into a booby trap. Are you with me?’

‘Yes, I see.’

‘But that’s just it, you won’t see. You’ll have to learn to use your sixth sense. You’re our guest here, Mr. Scott, and we don’t like our guests to get themselves killed. It’s bad for our reputation.’ He spoke like the maître d’ of some expensive hotel.

Miles nodded slowly. He was thinking of London, of how shop windows could blow out into your face, of how people hesitated before passing a parked car. He wanted to say, we’ve got bombs in London, too, mate, but thought the remark might be taken the wrong way. Besides, having made his point, Chesterton seemed happy. He folded the papers and tucked them into a drawer of the desk. Miles heard something rattle as the drawer was pulled open. A gun, he thought, lying ready for any confrontation with distorted reality. Billy Monmouth, a few years ago, had spoken with him about the troubles.

‘Who wants them to stop?’ he had said. ‘It’s the best training ground Britain’s got. NATO’s learned a lot from our experiences, medicine’s learned how to treat skin burns more efficiently, the pilgrim cousins have tested their own men in the field. It’s just one vast laboratory of human endeavor. Everybody over there treats it like a game.’

Miles did not believe that. If you read the newspaper reports, it didn’t seem much like a game. Billy’s, as always, was the comic-book version of events. He had never been to Belfast, and would never go.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Chesterton.

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, you’re thinking about breakfast, and rightly so. Come on.’

Breakfast. It had not occurred to Miles to feel hungry. Meekly, he followed Chesterton out of the room.

Initially, Chesterton’s mustache and bulk had caused Miles to place him in his late thirties, but now, studying him at leisure in the relaxed atmosphere of the canteen, he was obliged to subtract five or six years from that estimate. There was something in Chesterton’s face that should have deserted him in Northern Ireland but had decided to remain: a trace of youthful innocence.

It was well hidden, of course, but it was there. Was he army or Special Branch? It was hard to tell. From what Miles had seen thus far, it was true that any distinctions blurred. Even rank seemed to merge with rank, so that in the queue for breakfast, Chesterton had spoken with real friendliness to a much younger and inferior-looking man. Miles envied them their camaraderie. Here, he felt, real friendships could be forged. What was that old proverb about adversity?

‘All right is it?’ Chesterton jabbed his fork in the direction of Miles’s plate. ‘The food, I mean.’

‘Oh, yes, it’s fine, just what I needed.’

Miles cut and lifted a section of bacon, and watched a nodule of fat drip back into the pale yolk of the egg.

‘The operation is due to take place tonight,’ said Chesterton, mopping his plate with a thin slice of white bread, ‘if there are no hitches. We don’t expect that there will be any, not at this stage of things.’

‘I see.’

‘You know the setup, of course?’

‘Well... I have London’s side of it.’

Chesterton laughed. ‘Very good, Mr. Scott. Very well put. Yes, there’s often a rather wide gap between their — I suppose I should say your side of things and ours.’

‘Well, while I’m here, please try to think of me as being on your side, making it our side.’

‘Lined up against the mandarins of Whitehall, eh?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Have you heard of the initials NKIL, Mr. Scott?’

Miles pondered, tricked at first into thinking it some new terrorist organization. Then he remembered. ‘Not known in London,’ he said.

‘That’s right. If it’s not known in London, then it might as well not have happened. Intelligence here was being run down prior to this new bombing campaign. But now, well, we can hardly keep track of all the undercover squads, the nameless individuals who tiptoe in here, then tiptoe out again, heading south. Some of them we never hear from again. I don’t know whether they return directly to their bases on the mainland, or are caught by the enemy and turned or executed.’

‘Have the... enemy turned many people in your experience?’

‘Top secret,’ whispered Chesterton with a wink. ‘I’m not allowed to know. There have been rumors. Rogue personnel bombing their own units. If you really want to know, ask Whitehall.’

‘Whitehall isn’t quite as close-knit as that, I’m afraid.’

‘Isn’t it? You could have fooled me. Are you going to eat that egg?’

Miles shook his head, and Chesterton pulled the plate toward him.

‘Waste not want not,’ he said.

‘Would you mind explaining things to me,’ said Miles, ‘about this evening’s operation?’

‘Of course. Though there will be a formal briefing later this afternoon.’ Chesterton looked up from Miles’s plate. ‘You can stay here, you know, you don’t have to go. No one would be any the wiser back home, and it would save us from having to look after you.’

‘All the same,’ said Miles.

‘Well, it’s entirely up to you, Mr. Scott. We’ll be heading south. I don’t suppose I should say “we” really, since I’ll not be going along.’

‘Oh?’

‘No, but there will be a mobile support unit with you. They’re from the RUC. Probably four of them. And one or two others.’

‘From E4A?’

Chesterton, impressed by Miles’s ready knowledge, raised his eyebrows. E4A was a shadowy outpost of Special Branch, formed with the specific brief of deep surveillance of Irish terrorists. Miles knew very little about the group, except that it had a reputation for thoroughness in everything it did, with the possible exception of keeping within the law. On that particular point, E4A was known to be less than circumspect, and for that reason, as well as for others, it was not often mentioned within the firm. Chesterton shrugged his shoulders.

‘From Special Branch certainly,’ he said. ‘As you see, Mr. Scott, your presence is hardly necessary on this little jaunt.’

‘Nevertheless,’ said Miles, ‘here I am.’

‘Yes,’ said Chesterton, pushing back Miles’s plate, ‘here you are. Here you are indeed.’

The room was full of smoke when Miles arrived, so he assumed that he was late.

‘Ah, Mr. Scott. Welcome.’ This from the only man in the room not smoking with fierce determination. They were all dressed in civvies. It appeared that no one in the building wore a uniform of any kind.

‘And you are?’ asked Miles casually, taking the proffered hand.

The man laughed, glancing toward his smiling colleagues.

‘I’m nobody, Mr. Scott. I don’t exist. Nevertheless, here I am.’

Yes, thought Miles, here you are indeed.

‘May I introduce you to the rest of the team for our little evening drive?’ The man nodded toward a stocky character, his shirt open to reveal a sprouting chest, the hair as dark as a thicket. ‘This is One. One, meet Mr. Scott.’

‘Mr. Scott.’ They shook hands. One? Had Miles heard correctly? Maybe it was something Chinese, Wan or Wun. The man did not look Chinese.

‘And this’ — pointing now toward a much thinner man with a pale, cruel face — ‘is Two.’

‘Pleased to meet you.’

‘Likewise,’ said Miles. He had not misheard.

He was, in turn, introduced to Misters Three, Four and Five.

‘I suppose,’ said his host finally, ‘you can call me Six.’

They were all Irish, and this, after the crisp English of Chesterton, made Miles a little more nervous. He was drifting farther and farther from the safety of the raft, moving deeper into the dark waters around him. He was as isolated as he had ever been in his life.

‘Let’s proceed,’ said Six, while Miles tried to work out the identities of his colleagues. Two, Three, Four and Five might well be RUC men. They had the look about them of policemen not entirely used to this life of intrigue and double-dealing. They looked as if they were enjoying the novelty of it all. One was a different proposition again. Special Branch maybe. A brute of a man. Six was brutish, too, but more intelligent, and as he went on with the briefing Miles began to see the army training stamped all over him. Not quite SAS, but then what? Something shadowier still. Something unpleasant.

With the eyes of an executioner.

‘A simple arrest procedure should be sufficient on this one, but we’ll be armed for safety’s sake. As you know, Circe has been keeping an eye for several months on a small electronics factory south of Belfast. How far south I’m not going to say. We now have proof positive that this factory is an IRA front, set up specifically to buy in electronic timers and other such devices from the Continent. These devices then go to make up fairly specialized little bombs, such as those being used on the mainland at this very moment.’

Seated on his hard plastic chair, Miles noticed from the corner of his eye that the others looked at him from time to time, curious perhaps. Still they smiled and puffed away at their chain-lit cigarettes.

‘We shall,’ continued Six, ‘arrest and bring into custody the ringleaders, two men who will be, so intelligence informs us, alone in the factory this evening. They will not be armed’ — he looked up — ‘we hope. I’ve got some photographs of them here with full physical descriptions on the back.’ He handed out glossy black and white blowups of two young and handsome men, taken without their knowledge. One was leaving his car, while the other was standing by a petrol pump, examining his wallet. The photographs were impressively sharp and focused, the work of a real expert.

‘These were taken this morning,’ said Six.

Miles stopped being impressed and felt a sense of awe in its place.

‘On this sheet of paper is a breakdown of what each man is wearing today.’

Studying the details, down to shoe color and jewelry, Miles was again impressed. He was not dealing with a ‘half-cocked bunch of Paddies and Paddy-watchers,’ as Billy had termed the operation in Northern Ireland. This was a classy show, and these men were just about the most professional thugs he had ever encountered.

‘We’ve just time for a cuppa and maybe something to eat,’ said Six, his voice more relaxed, ‘and then we’ll be off. Any questions?’

There were none.

‘Mr. Scott, I’d be obliged if you would check that you have nothing on or about your person that could identify you, no wallet, spectacle case, letters or envelopes, or name tags on your underpants.’

Miles nodded as the others chuckled.

‘Then,’ continued Six, ‘you’ll be just as naked as us, should anything go wrong. From now on I think we’d better call you Seven. Is that all right with you?’

Miles nodded again.

As naked as us. But they were not naked, and he most definitely was. Although trained in the use of firearms, Miles loathed the things. They were noisy and unnecessary most of the time. But Miles wanted a gun now, just to even things up. In the canteen, he noted that the others were packing fairly heavyweight pistols. So he asked Six.

‘Oh,’ said Six, stirring three sugars into his mug of tea, ‘I shouldn’t think that would be necessary. I’m told that you’re only here as a spectator, not as a participant. If you were to be given a weapon, you would automatically become a participant, and we wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, would we?’

Hadn’t Chesterton said the same thing?

‘Don’t worry,’ continued Six, ‘I’ll put it on the record that you requested the use of a firearm and that your request was denied. Just sit back now and enjoy the ride, that’s my advice. And let’s just double-check that there’s nothing on you that would give the game away.’

‘I can see why they call you covert security,’ mumbled Miles, turning out his pockets like any small-time crook.

‘We have to be careful,’ said Six, running his eyes down Miles. Was there contempt in his look, hatred of this nuisance factor who had been embedded into an otherwise straightforward job? Well, to hell with him, thought Miles. I’m going to see this through whether I’m in the way or not. ‘There was a time,’ said Six, as much for the others as for Miles, ‘when we could be sure of these things going as smoothly as a greased runner. The enemy were just cartoon cutouts toting half-baked bombs, getting themselves blown up more than anybody else. There wasn’t any problem.’

‘The Paddy Factor,’ interrupted Miles, wishing to appear knowledgeable and immediately regretting it. Six looked toward the others, who were not smiling any longer.

‘One of your smart London phrases,’ hissed Six, the door to his prejudices open at last. ‘You lot sit at your desks all day smirking at newspaper reports of another soldier killed, another part-timer crippled, and you can laugh as loudly as you like because it’s all happening a million miles away from your bowler hats and tea trolleys, but here, well, we see things through different eyes.’

Go on, thought Miles, spew it all up.

‘Over here everything changes. There’s no Paddy Factor because there are no Paddies anymore. Everyone’s grown up now. They don’t learn their trade in the haylofts and the barns. They’ve all been to college, to university. They’ve got brains, they’re open-eyed, they know the score. If you go along on this trip expecting to meet Paddies, then let me assure you that you’re in for a bit of a surprise.’

Behind the speech, Miles could hear a cry of frustration against Whitehall’s cumulative neglect of the ‘troubles.’ Finally, almost in a whisper, his breath coming fast and hot from his lungs, Six said, ‘Just to put you in the picture, that’s all,’ and fell silent as he gulped at his tea. The silence was more unnerving still, and Miles felt as though he had been cajoled onto a roller coaster, only to find himself wanting to get off as the machine reached the top of its climb.

Too late to get off now, he thought, his hands clutching at the table rim. Far too late.

The car flew over the rise in the road and headed downhill even faster. Miles felt his stomach surge, and craned his neck to catch a glimpse of the speedometer. Seventy. The country was a darkening blur outside his window, and he began to feel a claustrophobia that had not assailed him since his youth. The day had become a sort of recurring nightmare. Here he was again, sandwiched in the back of a car. In the front sat Six and his equally deadly ally, One. And somewhere behind, the remaining members of the team were following in a transit van marked MURPHY’S MEAT & POULTRY.

The car had the body of a Cortina, but what lurked beneath the bonnet was something else entirely. From the moment the engine had been brought to life, Miles had been aware of an extraordinary power, two-point-six liters or more of it. The thing accelerated like a rocket, sending its passengers back in their seats. The roller-coaster effect was complete.

There was little conversation during the drive. For one thing, the engine was too noisy, the whole interior of the car seeming to vibrate, and for another, no one seemed in the mood for speaking. Miles could feel his back cloying with sweat, his hair prickling. Yes, this was a foreign country, everything out of kilter, just as Chesterton had said. So, as though he really were on a roller coaster, Miles gritted his teeth and sat back, determination replacing the fear in his stomach, his eyes narrowed so that he would have to take in only very little of what was happening and what was about to happen.

Although he could not be said to be an expert on the scale and geography of Northern Ireland, it did seem to him that they had traveled a good long way south. Of course, there might have been several twistings and turnings toward east and west. They could be anywhere. All the same, their destination was supposed to be due south of Belfast, and now that he thought about it, ‘south of Belfast’ had come with ominous vagueness from Six’s mouth. How far south exactly? He had heard of border raids, but only rumors. Of course mistakes had been made by patrols in the past. But this was different, wasn’t it?

‘Nearly there,’ roared Six. He rolled down his window and waved with his hand, signaling this information to the van. One of the slices of bread sandwiching Miles slipped the pistol out of his jacket and gave it a quick check.

‘Browning,’ he explained, weighing the gun in his palm and smiling. Why did they all smile? Miles remembered that monkeys smiled when afraid, but there was no fear in these men. They were about to enjoy themselves. They had been built with this operation in mind, and now they were about to be made very happy indeed. Yes, these were knowing smiles, and Miles, despite his every effort, could not make himself smile back.

It was as cold as a tomb, a deep freeze, a mortuary: as cold as all the images of stasis and lifelessness that were conjured in Miles Flint’s head. It was dark, too, but his fevered mind hadn’t got round to cataloging similes for darkness yet. The six men walked slightly ahead of him, though they glanced back often to make sure that he was still with them and had not glided off into the night.

The factory was a small, self-contained unit within a cluster of about a dozen, the site itself seeming new, doubtless part of some regeneration program for the economy. There was a light on in the small office. Six had explained the layout to them in enormous detail. A front door led directly into the office. There was a larger warehouse entrance, but it would be locked at night. Entrance to the factory could be gained only through the office. If they made a run for it, they would run into the factory, a small hangar of a place, equipped with two fire exits. Three would cover one of these exits, Four the other. They branched off now, at the entrance to the site, and made their way around to the back of the buildings. Only one of the factory units was lit.

‘That’s our baby,’ said Six, breathing good deep breaths. He looked ready to swim the channel. Then he drew out his pistol, some huge, anonymous, nonregulation model. It glinted metal-blue in the faint light from the office window. He didn’t look like a swimmer anymore. He looked ready to club some seals.

‘Let’s go, gentlemen,’ he whispered.

They did not rush the door, not until they were one step away from it. Six knocked once, and opened the door with split- second force. One was right behind him, gun trained, and the two RUC men stepped in afterward, leaving Miles to walk through the door last, last and unarmed, as though he were in charge. Three men stood behind a desk, gawping at him. Their hands were above their heads, and on the table lay some plans. To Miles they looked like the blueprints of some piece of circuitry.

‘We’d better have those,’ snarled Six, and one of the rather timid-looking RUC men lifted the plans and began to roll them up.

‘Who the hell are you?’ shouted one of the men behind the desk. Miles recognized him as the more handsome of the two men in the photographs. He was wearing the clothes in his description, but his tie hung loosely around his neck. He looked every inch the harassed businessman, with orders to be dispatched and deadlines to meet.

‘Never mind that,’ said Six in an even more Irish accent than he had used with Miles and the others. He pointed toward the third man with his finger, his gun hand steadily trained upon the handsome businessman. ‘Who the hell are you?’

This third man was somewhat older than the others. He looked ready to expire at any moment. Innocence was written on his face in pale, trembling letters.

‘I’m Macdonald,’ he managed to say at last. ‘Dicky Macdonald. I ordered some circuit boards. I just... I mean, this hasn’t got anything to do with me, whatever it is. Jesus, I’ve a wife and kids. Have the lads not been paying their protection money, is that it? I’ve not—’

‘Mr. Macdonald,’ said Six, ‘will you please go outside. Two, look after Mr. Macdonald. Get him into his car and get him away from here.’

Two nodded, relieved to be going back outside. The office, despite the cold coming in through the open door, was stuffy with fumes. A portable gas fire burned away furiously in one corner.

‘Cozy,’ said Six, his voice almost a whisper. ‘I mean, the whole setup’s cozy.’

‘Look, pal, what’s this all about?’ This came from the other man, his voice quieter than that of his partner, but his eyes infinitely wilder.

‘This is about bomb-making, this is about the murder of innocents and of Her Majesty’s forces, this is about the two of you.’

‘You’re right out of order,’ said the handsome one.

‘You’re over the damned border!’ shouted the other one, confirming Miles’s worst fears. His eyes were burning, but those of Six burned right back at him. ‘The bloody English army! I don’t believe it. You’re way out of your territory. You better get the hell out of here. This is an international incident!’

‘Listen to it, would you?’ said One, speaking for the first time, and in a voice as cold as his gun. ‘A terrorist calling this an outrage.’

‘They never learn, do they?’ the handsome one said to the wild-eyed. ‘They think they can do whatever they like.’

Miles knew for the first time that he was about to witness an execution. Reason demanded it. They could not cross the border and take these men back: there would be too many questions at the trial, accusations, witnesses (Macdonald for one), and the shit would hit the fan all around the world. Nobody had any intention of letting that happen. This was an assassination run, and he was right here in the middle of it. He wanted to speak, but his jaw muscles would not move. He felt paralyzed, like the prey of some insidious and poisonous insect.

‘Seven?’ said Six, and it took Miles fully a second to realize that he was being addressed.

‘Yes?’

‘Come here, would you?’

‘Are you in charge here?’ said wild-eyed. Then, to Six, ‘Is he in charge?’

It was only when One laughed, a low, heartless chuckle, that Miles knew for certain that he was in trouble, though really he supposed that he had had some inkling all along. They were about to incriminate him in the act. They were going to make him fire the shots.

But I’m a watchman, he wanted to shout. That’s all, I just watch, I don’t do. Someone else always does the doing, not me, never me.

Instead of which he shuffled forward, his legs full of sand and water, noticing several things as he moved: the girlie calendar on the wall, the fact that one window and one door of the office led inward, right into the factory itself, the sheen of animal fear on the faces of everyone, and the facts of his isolation and his unfitness to be here at all. Throughout his adult life, he had trained himself to blend in, to be anonymous and invisible, and now these men were destroying his life’s work. They were turning him into the main attraction.

And then the pistol was pointing at him.

While the look on Six’s face said everything there was to say about domination and betrayal.

‘Will you go and stand with these gentlemen, please?’

‘What the hell is this?’ Miles tried to sound amused, realizing deep within himself that this was no joke.

‘Will you go and stand with these gentlemen, please?’

‘Do what you’re told, prick!’ This came from One, who was laughing again, clearly a man upon whom no trick had ever been played. He had the look of a machine, preprogrammed for this moment.

Miles’s head was spinning.

‘There’s been some terrible—’ But the words seemed far too vague and inadequate.

‘Some terrible mistake?’ mimicked Six. ‘No, there’s been no mistake. The orders were unambiguous. Orders always are. These two’ — waving his gun at the terrorists — ‘and you.’

‘Whose orders?’ Miles was trying to think fast, while half his mind tried to control his suddenly aching bladder.

‘There’s no mistake, Mr. Scott, honestly.’ Six was speaking very gently.

‘My name’s not Scott. It’s Miles Flint. You can check that.’

Again, very quietly, ‘There’s been no mistake.’

Three of them in front of the desk. Three behind.

‘Get it over with,’ said handsome.

‘Patience, Collins,’ said Six. ‘It’s not every day we get to execute someone.’

One was about to laugh again, his stomach distending and his head arching back, and Miles was opening his arms to make another attempt at explanation, when the wild-eyed man heaved the desk with sudden fierceness onto its side, sending Six and One off balance. The handsome man opened the door into the factory, while his counterpart made a spectacularly clumsy dive through the window. After an almost fatal second’s hesitation, Miles followed them, and the first shot flew an inch above his head.

In the darkness of the factory, there was nothing to do but survive for the moment. Every second he stayed alive now was a bonus. He slipped behind some machinery, ran through a maze of what appeared to be lathes, then crouched. He breathed hard, summoning up all the adrenaline he could, and shook his head to clear it of dizziness and any lingering indecision. That pause back there had nearly cost him his life. For the moment he could think of no way out, but he was not dead: that was a start.

He heard One, Six, and the spare RUC man come into the darkness, quite close to him but not too close. There were two fire exits, but both were covered from outside. The shot would have alerted the two men keeping watch. He was as trapped as a baited badger.

A shot rang out suddenly from the other end of the building, and Miles heard One screech, ‘They’ve got guns!’

Good for them.

‘Find a light switch,’ hissed Six. ‘Must be around here.’

‘Or maybe back in the office,’ whispered One. ‘We want to kill the lights in there anyway. We’re sitting targets while they’re on.’

‘Right, Five, slip back into the office.’

‘Why me?’ Five sounded in some distress. Miles judged that if he were going to move farther away, then this confusion was offering him his best cover. The problem, of course, was that in moving farther away from the assassins, he was moving closer to the enemy, who might mistake him for their foe. A badger had never been so baited.

His eyes becoming accustomed to the gloom, he moved silently forward, bent double, watching the floor so that he did not bang his feet against anything metallic. Noise would travel far in here.

Rather than traveling in a straight line toward the opposite wall, he moved around the edge of the interior, staying well out of any stray bullet’s way. Perhaps there was another means of exit, but he thought not: the planning had been immaculate, well, almost immaculate. His pounding heart was proof of a slipup. Six would be hoping that the slipup was temporary. So would One. Miles did not fancy having to tackle either of them on the issue.

And then, coming around one corner, he found the mouth of a pistol staring him in the face.

‘I think I’m on your side,’ he whispered. The handsome one put his finger to his lips and motioned for him to follow.

Wild-eyed was crouching behind a bench. He ignored Miles.

‘They’ve got both fire exits covered,’ Miles told handsome, ‘and they’re trying to turn on the lights in here.’ He felt a shiver in his abdomen: he was betraying his country, and it felt good. He remembered fights he had been in, drunken half brawls at university. He had to relearn that old aggression, and fast.

‘Then we’d better get out before that happens,’ said handsome, ‘otherwise they’ll pick us off no trouble at all.’

‘Give it a few more seconds,’ said wild-eyed, ‘give the bastards outside time to relax again. If they heard the shots, they’ll be as jumpy as a bitch in heat.’

Looking behind him, Miles saw the faint outline of one fire exit. There was a bar halfway up the door that had to be pushed, and the door would open easily. It was a godsend, really, for the quickness with which it could be opened would, with a little luck, surprise those waiting outside.

Wild-eyed looked at Miles. ‘There’s no time for questions now,’ he spat, ‘but there’ll be plenty for you to answer afterward. You come with us, or you stay behind. Suit yourself. I couldn’t give a monkey’s.’

And with that he leaped to his feet and threw himself at the door, beginning to fire off shots as he went.

‘Keep low when you run,’ called handsome, running after his friend, and Miles, still crouching, followed like a circus monkey out into the cool fresh air.

Where no RUC men awaited him. A shot came from their left, and wild-eyed and handsome returned the fire, still running. The RUC men were covering the wrong exits. They had gone to the adjoining unit!

There is a God, Miles screamed to himself as he ran through the long grass, there is a sweet Jesus Christ and he loves me, he loves me, he loves me!

But another shot, whinnying past him from the factory, brought wild-eyed down onto his face.

Leave him, thought Miles, watching handsome run on, never glancing back. Then he stopped thinking altogether and concentrated on running for his life.

They crossed a landscaped border of soil and small trees, and then a road. And after that a field, the soil heavy underfoot, trying to suck his weary feet down. Hide here, it said, hide under me. But Miles kept on running. There was an explosion behind him: the factory. Flames lit the sky.

Over the fence, trousers snagged and torn, then a pasture, and finally a clump of trees with a glade, a lovely spot for a picnic. He had gone past the collapsed figure of his fellow runner before he noticed him. He brought his legs to a juddering halt and fell to his knees. His lungs felt like the stoked boiler of a steam train, and his mouth was full of a sticky saliva which, when he attempted to spit it out, clung to his lips and his tongue, so that in the end he had to wipe it away with his sleeve. He rubbed his hands over the wet grass and licked the palms, feeling the moisture refresh him.

And seemed to pass out for a time, lying on his back, while the trees and the sky whirled above him, restless, never stopping, like some automated children’s kaleidoscope...

Twenty

The gun was pointing at his pineal eye, and perhaps this was what had brought him awake, his back chilled with damp, his lungs still fiery and raw. Above the gun, Miles could just about focus on the milky face of Collins. That was what they had called him, Collins.

‘There are some questions need answering.’

Miles nodded slowly, aware of the barrel of the gun, its explosive potential. Fire away, he almost said, but swallowed instead.

‘Why did they want you dead?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Miles, his mouth thick.

‘Who are you anyway?’

‘My name is Miles Flint. I live and work in London. I work for Military Intelligence.’ Collins seemed unimpressed. ‘I am a surveillance officer,’ Miles continued slowly, aware that his answers meant a great deal. ‘I was supposed to be witnessing the arrest of two suspected terrorists. That’s all.’

Collins smiled wryly. His hair stuck to his forehead like great leeches at feeding time. There was a considerable intelligence behind the large, deep eyes, but also an amount of fear. Miles knew that his life was still in danger. He very much did not want to die, not yet, not without knowing why.

‘You thought you were going to see us arrested, eh?’

‘That’s right.’

Collins laughed quietly. ‘There aren’t any arrests these days, not here. This is no-man’s-land. Shoot to kill. They’d crossed the border. It’s easier to kill than to take us alive. Don’t you know that?’

‘I know it now. What was that explosion?’

‘Just a little something I left for your friends. Which brings us back to you. You could be a plant. You could be anything or anyone. This whole thing could be a setup. So why don’t you persuade me otherwise, eh?’

The gun was as steady as the trees around them. Miles swallowed, feeling hunger and thirst and a whole welter of emotions within him.

‘I’ll need to take off my trousers,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘I’ll need to take off my trousers,’ he repeated, ‘because back there, I was so scared that I wet myself.’

They were running again, together, through the fine drizzle blowing across the fields. It had grown light, and so they moved with caution, though the only sounds around them were those of the waking birds. Miles felt more tired than he had ever been, and yet he moved easily enough, as though in a dream. He did not even feel the constant chafing of his damp trousers against his legs.

Collins moved ahead of him, the pistol out of sight beneath his shirt. He had discarded his tie altogether, burying it in loam, and he moved now like some wild species, quite at home in both terrain and situation. I’m on the run with a terrorist, thought Miles. In a strange land, not knowing quite what I should be doing. He replayed the events of the previous hours, trying to answer his own questions. Had there been a mistake? No, there had been no mistake. The notion of Six making that sort of error was unthinkable. The truth was that someone somewhere, someone in authority, wanted him dead and buried as privately as possible. He had been sent into this nightmare without a weapon and without any means of identification. He carried only his money and a handkerchief.

He was the invisible man now all right, because that was the way they had wanted him to die.

From behind, Miles thought he caught the faint drone of a motor vehicle. He called to Collins, who crouched. Miles fell onto his knees in the long grass and shuffled toward him. Collins had drawn his gun.

‘What is it?’ he whispered.

‘Some kind of vehicle,’ said Miles, bending lower as the sound moved more obviously toward them, traveling slowly.

Both men watched through the filmy rain as the van juddered past, both driver and passenger staring out of the side windows. Miles gazed at the words MURPHY’S MEAT & POULTRY written on the side of the van.

‘That’s them,’ he said. ‘There was that van and a Cortina.’

Collins leveled the pistol and followed the slow progress of the van. He did not shoot, and Miles started breathing again when the vehicle had disappeared from view and the pistol was lowered again and replaced inside the shirt.

‘We’d better wait here a few minutes,’ said Collins. He lay back and studied Miles. ‘You’re genuine enough,’ he said at last. ‘I knew it when I watched you sleeping back there. I thought to myself, no plant would ever be able to sleep at a time like that.’

‘Your friend...’ Miles began, trying to apologize or explain.

‘We all know the risks,’ said Collins. ‘He knew them better than some.’ He pulled at a piece of grass and began to chew on it.

‘Do I just call you Collins?’ asked Miles eventually.

‘My name’s Will, but yes, you just call me Collins.’

Miles wondered at that; Will, short for William presumably. It did not seem a likely name for a Catholic, not from what little Miles knew of the Boyne and King William of Orange.

‘I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,’ said Collins, spitting out the grass. ‘We’re going to make for a farm I know, where we’ll be relatively safe. We’ll stay there for a while until these bastards have to call off the search. Then’ — he patted his shirt — ‘I’ll decide what to do about you. Meantime you can tell me about yourself as we go. Maybe that’ll help me to make up my mind.’

‘That sounds reasonable,’ Miles said, wondering whether or not he had meant it to sound ironic. Irony would not be in his best interests here. He had to keep everything straightforward, since this world into which he had plunged seemed to him about as straightforward as Hampton Court maze. He had already decided one thing: if he could get his hands on Collins’s gun, then he would take the risk. The thought made him tingle, as though he had been bitten by a radioactive spider. Despite himself, Miles Flint broke into a huge, early-morning smile.

The farmhouse was an old two-story building, galloping toward dilapidation. The door was not locked, and inside Collins motioned Miles to sit down and remain silent, while he went upstairs as quietly as was possible. The stairs were a perfect burglar alarm, creaking ponderously with every footstep. The upstairs landing, too, joined in the fun, identifying for Miles the progress Collins was making.

The room in which Miles sat was part kitchen, part lounge. He sat at a heavy wooden table, upon which lay a loaf of uncut bread and a huge pat of butter. There was a wood-burning stove in one corner, with a teapot of truly Brobdingnagian proportions sitting on it. Sheila had always wanted a wood-burning stove. All Miles wanted was a cup of hot, sweet tea and a slice or two of buttered bread.

He knew that he could make a run for it, could take off across the gritty farmyard in his second escape of the day, but Collins was counting on his tiredness, hunger, thirst, and the fact that this place provided shelter from those who might still be searching for him.

Collins was a shrewd man. Miles bided his time, making himself comfortable on the long wooden bench.

A few minutes later, with accompanying squeals of tortured wood, Collins reappeared from upstairs. He stared at Miles, then smiled, yes, you’ve stayed put, just as I knew you would. He went to the stove, opened it, and dropped a firelighter into it. This he lit with a match, then crammed small, neat peat briquettes into the iron interior. A blaze started almost immediately, and Collins closed the door with a satisfied chuckle. He warmed his limbs, motioning for Miles to join him, then filled the old kettle with water and sat it on the heat.

‘No time at all,’ he said quietly, while Miles rubbed his hands and felt the life still in them, the tingle he had felt in that damp field.

‘Nobody’ll bother us for a while,’ said Collins. He cut thick slices of bread and spread butter over them. Miles, busy with the kettle, accepted one and bit into it. The kettle had boiled, and above the sink was an old tin tea caddy. He washed out the huge teapot, then opened the caddy. Inside, wrapped in clear plastic, was a small handgun. Miles looked quickly at Collins, who was busily slicing more bread, then pulled the gun out and slipped it into his pocket. Its weight there felt comforting. Silently, he replaced the caddy and tried another tin box. This contained loose tea and a rusted scoop. Collins still had not looked at him. Miles filled the teapot with hot water, threw in a handful of leaves, and touched his trouser pocket to check that he had not been hallucinating.

‘Here we go,’ he said, pouring the tea out into tin mugs. He was trying to forget about the gun, for he knew that Collins would spot any change in his attitude or even his tone of voice. He did not have a gun, he did not have a gun, he was still at the absolute mercy of Collins.

But he did have a gun. The question now was, would he use it?

‘Have you decided yet?’ asked Collins, wolfing down the last of the bread. They had eaten the entire loaf, and were on to a second pot of tea.

‘Decided what?’

‘Decided why your friends should want you dead.’

‘I’ve got a few ideas, too many ideas in fact.’ Miles sipped at his tea. ‘A colleague of mine tried to warn me before I came out here, I think, but he was vague. He wouldn’t say much.’

‘Some friend,’ said Collins.

‘I didn’t say friend. I said colleague.’

‘What’s the difference?’

Miles shrugged. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘what about you?’

‘What about me?’

‘Well, I take it you are a terrorist, an enemy of the British state?’

‘I’m not a Sunday-school teacher,’ said Collins, smiling, ‘but I’m no terrorist. I’m a freedom fighter.’

‘That’s just the same thing viewed from a different angle.’

‘Robin Hood was a freedom fighter. Would you call him a terrorist?’

‘Robin Hood may not have been such a hero after all. Historical research tells us—’

Collins hooted.

‘Would you listen to him?’ he said, raising his eyes to the ceiling as though consulting some friend up there. ‘“Historical bloody research.” Aye, Mr. Flint or Scott or whatever, history’s a funny thing, though, isn’t it? I mean, look at what history’s done to Ireland, and look at how successive British parliaments since God knows when have twisted the real situation here into a pack of lies for their own use. That’s all the history I need to know, and a right biased bastard it is. Shall I give you a history lesson, Mr. Flint? No, perhaps not. Instead, you can tell me, what do you know about the situation here, about the roots of the trouble?’

Miles shrugged his shoulders, feeling suddenly tired. ‘Not much,’ he said, ‘I confess that.’

‘Just what you read in your newspapers and see on TV, am I right?’

‘That’s about it.’

‘But you see, it goes back a lot further than that, a whole lot further. It goes back nearly five hundred years. Ireland was Catholic, you see, just when it shouldn’t have been. That was its only mistake. And the people wouldn’t change their religion, so Protestants had to be brought in instead, and they were given the land that had belonged by right to the Catholics.’

‘Yes, plantation they called it, didn’t they?’

‘Plantation is right. The English turned our princes into slum landlords, and that’s been the way of it ever since.’ Collins stretched. ‘Ach, what’s the point?’ He pointed to a door at the foot of the stairs. ‘There’s a spare room through there. We’ll get some sleep, then see what’s to be done.’

‘Where are we exactly?’

‘County Monaghan,’ said Collins. ‘That’s all you need to know. Better for you if you don’t know. OK?’

Patting his shirt again, he rose from the table. Miles resisted the temptation to pat his pocket in reply.

There was a small bed with a horsehair mattress, and a large armchair in the room, and no space for anything else. The place smelled damp, musty with disuse. But Collins found a two-bar electric heater and plugged it in, sparks flying as the layer of dust that lay upon it ignited. Soon, however, it had heated the room. Collins chose to sleep in the chair, so that he could keep an eye on his ‘prisoner,’ as he put it. He pulled one of several thick quilts from the bed and wrapped it around himself, then maneuvered his way out of his clothes, which he threw in front of the fire, telling Miles to do likewise. The bed was chilled, but Miles soon warmed up. He would have given everything for a hot bath and a shave, followed by a change of clothes, but contented himself for the moment. He had slipped the gun under his pillow before throwing the trousers over toward Collins, who had patted the pockets conspicuously.

What if it were discovered that the gun was missing from its caddy? Well, he had nothing to lose in any case. He felt woozy and welcomed sleep, but Collins seemed to have wound himself up by talking of Ireland, and he continued his monologue, snatches of which Miles heard becoming distorted and echoic as he fell toward darkness and release.

When he awoke, the sun was shining. His watch said ten, which meant that he had slept for only three hours, yet he felt utterly refreshed and wide awake. He felt for the gun and stroked it, then looked across to where Collins had pulled the quilt right up over his head and was breathing with the deep regularity of sleep. Miles slipped out of bed, leaving the gun under the pillow, and picked up his clothes from in front of the fire, which was still burning. His clothes were dry, except for a patch of damp here and there. The faint odors of sweat and dried urine were not inviting, but he dressed anyway, leaving off his shoes. Collins’s breathing was becoming rather too deep, and he might wake himself with a snore soon. Quickly, Miles returned to the bed and slid the gun into his pocket, wrapped still in its plastic packet.

What now? He could disarm Collins, or he could make his escape. He had heard no sounds from the kitchen or from upstairs. The farm seemed utterly deserted: no hens clucking in the yard, no dog, no tractors or jeeps, no clanking of machinery at all. This was the Marie Celeste of agriculture: the bread and butter lying out, the kitchen still warm from the previous evening, the door unlocked. It all seemed to him — for the first time — very strange, and he wondered why he had not mentioned this to Collins, who now snorted once, turned beneath the quilt, and began to breathe more regularly again.

Miles, stepping over the pile of clothes, the outstretched legs, the shoes, managed to pull open the door without a sound, watching the figure in the chair as he did so. He entered the short hallway and tiptoed into the kitchen, closing that door behind him. So far so good.

Then he caught sight of the girl at the kitchen table, and felt his chest tighten into a clenched fist. But the girl stared at him as though it were the most natural thing in the world for a stocking-footed stranger to appear before her. She was eating bread and jam, and, sure enough, Miles could smell the unmistakable aroma of newly baked bread, half a loaf of which sat on the table alongside a new wedge of butter. The girl turned her sleepy gaze back toward the table. She was nine or ten, her eyes and hair dark, her face thin and sharp. Miles could think of nothing to say, so he decided to ignore her. He started to walk toward the kitchen door, deciding at that moment, shoes or no, to leave, but he kept his eyes on the girl in case she should set up a hue and cry.

Finally, he decided to make a sign to her that she should remain quiet, and that was what he was doing when the door pushed itself open and Will Collins came in from the yard, clean clothes on his back and black Wellington boots on his feet.

‘No need for that, Mr. Flint,’ he said casually. ‘Marie’s dumb, can’t utter a sound. She won’t give you any trouble.’

‘Who the hell is that in the room?’ gasped Miles.

‘Oh, that’s Champ. He lives here. Has he fallen asleep by any chance? I take it that’s why you’re out here. And about to leave us by the look of it. Well, go ahead.’

Collins made a sweeping gesture with his arm, holding the door ajar for Miles.

‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Though I should warn you that your friends are still in the neighborhood. They won’t be for long. I’ve just telephoned the local gardai with an anonymous tip-off that they’re here and have broken the immigration laws in the process. They’ll be chased off in a hurry, I should think, but if you want to take your chance just now, be my guest.’

Collins was smiling like a schoolboy: he’d gained the upper hand again and was delighted with himself. Miles walked back to the table and sat down across from the girl. He smiled at her, and she smiled back.

‘Suit yourself,’ Collins said, closing the door with a slam, which eventually brought the man called Champ staggering into the room.

‘He’s made off, Will!’ he shouted before seeing Miles seated quite peaceably at the table. ‘Oh, Jesus, mister, what a fright you near gave me.’

Laughing, Collins went to the stove to pour out more tea.

In the rich, primitive warmth of the kitchen, they smoked cigarettes and played gin rummy. Miles took long puffs of those cigarettes he won, though he had not smoked for years. As an undergraduate, he had affected a liking for Gauloises so as to appear bohemian. Now he smoked to blend in with Collins and Champ. It was an old and trusted psychological ploy — become like your captors. It made their minds easier to read, and also made it more difficult for them to justify murdering you. So he smoked, not heavily or with any conspicuous show, just enough. And, playing cards, he made sure that he lost as often as he won, even if it meant cheating against himself.

More often than not, they used candles instead of the low-wattage electric lighting. This made the room more intimate still, so that everyone felt very comfortable in the presence of everyone else. Just the desired effect. Miles was practicing on Champ now, trying to ingratiate himself. Champ was a simple man, but not simple-minded. He had told Miles that working the land gave a man time to think, lots of time, and offered also the opportunity for a kind of communion with natural justice, so that the man-made farce called ‘justice’ came to seem utterly ridiculous.

The farm, however, was no longer a working concern. Most of the fields had been sold to a property developer in Dublin, who would let it molder until the time was right for building or selling. Miles reckoned that Champ was fifty, though he might be a bit younger or a bit older. The land did that: it made the young old before their time, and the old seem eternally young.

During the days, Collins wandered through the fields and around the farm, keeping himself to himself. He had agreed to allow Miles an amount of freedom, and so Miles too walked the farm, inspecting the carcasses of rusting cars and antiquated machinery, watching the wooden planks of the cowshed crumble to dust beneath his palm, rotten with woodworm. Everything here had run down in accordance with the rules laid down by nature itself. Soon the rusting scrap would be covered by earth and grass, wild seedlings of oats and barley, bright flowers.

In the warmth of the kitchen, kitted out in some of Champ’s old work clothes, Miles thought of London. What would Sheila be thinking? He wondered, too, about the traitor, the smiling Arab, the whole game. He had swallowed a great draft of fear, and it had destroyed a tiny, important part of him. There remained a maddening need to know the truth, even if the reward for knowing that truth was received point-blank and without mercy.

But he would never discover the truth unless he could escape from the farm. He needed Collins’s help, needed to persuade him to arrange passage to London, and that, finally, meant telling him everything.

Twenty-One

‘We’re going to Drogheda.’

‘Who’s Drogheda?’

‘It’s not a who, it’s a where. Champ’s gone to pick up a car for us. Can you drive?’

‘Yes.’

Miles wondered, is this it, a drive into the country, down a lane, into some woodland, and then the gun at the base of the neck? Dying somewhere in Ireland, a lowly statistic that might never even come to light.

‘About Champ...’ Miles began, curious and trying to calm himself.

‘What about him?’

‘Is he your... father?’

Collins roared with laughter.

‘Of course not. Jesus, I wonder if I should take that as an insult?’

‘I shouldn’t if I were you. He’s a very clever man, and a very sane one. What about Marie?’

‘Oh, Marie’s his daughter right enough.’

‘And his wife?’ They were in the yard immediately outside the kitchen door. Collins seemed to be scanning the horizon for some kind of prey.

‘She ran out on him when the farm started to collapse. She’s always been a survivor.’

Miles nodded slowly. Collins was still shaking his head and grinning.

‘Me the son of Champ,’ he said. ‘Jesus, I’m not even a Catholic.’

There was smoke in the distance. But the chaff had already been burned, hadn’t it? Collins had seen it too, puffing into the air, growing ever nearer as though carried on the wind, though there was no wind.

‘Collins—’

‘It’s Champ!’ Collins was already reaching into his waistband, producing the handgun that Miles had not seen since the night of their escape. Looking up the winding farm road, Miles saw Champ’s car veer sharply and take the last hundred yards or so of track as though heading toward a finishing line. The car, dust enveloping it, slid to a halt in front of them. Dust, thought Miles, that’s what it is, not smoke.

‘What’s the hurry, Champ?’ shouted Collins, his eyes still fixed on the track.

‘Being followed!’ Champ bellowed back at him, lurching out of the car. ‘Get in!’

Miles had no choice. Collins pushed him into the driver’s seat, then ran around to the passenger side, hauling himself in. There was blood on the steering wheel.

‘Champ’s hurt,’ said Miles.

‘Never mind Champ. He’s indestructible. Get us out of here.’

‘Same way we came?’

‘No, around the side of the barn. There’s an old track there through the fields.’

‘That’s never wide enough—’

The barrel of the gun stuck its cold, probing tongue into Miles’s neck.

‘Drive,’ said Collins.

Taking the car in its circuit around the farmhouse, Miles had time to glimpse the other car heading down the main track toward the farm. Oh, he’d recognize that car in his dreams, in his waking nightmares, and he had no doubt that Six and One would be in front, the one driving, the other angling his gun out of the window.

He drove.

Champ had gone into the farmhouse. It struck Miles that he would be reaching into the old tea caddy, searching for his own weapon, the weapon with which to protect Marie and himself. Oh, God...

‘Just drive!’

He had pulled the car out of one rutted ditch, foot hard down on the accelerator, and now pushed it through the tortured track, no more than a walkway, while the fields complained all around him and the motor whined its plea for a third gear change.

‘It’s them!’ he shouted.

‘Well I didn’t think it was Christian Aid,’ Collins called back as the first hollow bang told them both that bullets were angling toward them.

The fields, once pockets of green, now seemed huge and barren. Miles knew that one slip would plunge the car into another, larger ditch. He had to keep his hands steady, steady despite the smear of blood on the steering wheel, despite the sweat pouring down his face.

Collins slid into the backseat and smashed the window with the butt of his gun. Another whine, as of a blacksmith’s hammer, came and went, and Miles was still alive. There was the terrible sound of sudden thunder as Collins tried his luck. As his ears cleared, Miles risked a glance in the rearview mirror. The car behind had slowed.

‘They don’t like that!’ Collins shouted.

Then Miles found the ditch.

The car plunged in, its back wheels leaving the ground and remaining suspended. Collins was screaming at him.

‘I need your weight on the boot,’ Miles said, feeling a sudden calm, the tranquility of the doomed. The other car stopped abruptly as Collins scrambled out of the back window frame and landed on the large boot, still firing off bullets like a man possessed. Miles was no race-car driver, no stock-car expert. This was instinct, nothing more. He put the car into reverse, waited until Collins had hammered the back wheels onto the dry clay soil, and let the engine go with everything it had. The unrestrained clamor of machinery filled the air, and the car jolted back, climbing onto the road again, sending Collins tumbling into the backseat, where he whooped and sent a shot through the roof of the car.

Nothing to lose, thought Miles. In fact, it’s inspired. He kept his foot down hard on the accelerator, yelling to Collins to watch out, and sent the car screaming back into the Cortina, where it crumpled the bonnet. Collins, ready, sent four or five shots into the intact windscreen from a range of three feet, while Miles found first gear and prayed that their own car had not been damaged in the collision.

They flew, while the wrecked Cortina let off steam, no bodies apparent in its interior. The windscreen was still intact.

Reinforced glass. Very. He’d seen it before. The thing was a veritable tank.

None of which worried Collins, who gave several more victory whoops as he climbed back into the passenger seat.

‘We showed them,’ he said. ‘We showed the bastards where to get off.’

But Miles doubted that.

‘What exactly,’ said Miles, ‘did you mean back there?’

The fields had opened into a lane, and the lane had opened into a two-lane highway. Miles, getting to know the car’s whims, had relaxed a little, but still felt queasy.

‘When?’ Collins was reloading, picking bullets out of his pockets and pushing them into the ammunition clip. Cordite was all around.

‘When you said you’re not a Catholic.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Then why do you fight on their side?’

‘Jesus, you can ask that? When you just saw what the other side looks like?’

The car coughed, reminding Miles that it was old and rusty, as unused to any of this as he was. It was the kind of car you would steal only if contemplating a one-way trip.

‘I’ve heard,’ said Miles, ‘that even the Eire government isn’t in favor of the IRA or their methods.’

‘You’re not seeing, are you? You’re still blind. Those men back there have been hunting us for days, they’re madmen. And they’re the supposed security force. Now do you see? Your government’s put this country into the hands of the insane, and then gone and torn up the rules to boot.’

‘It doesn’t explain how you come to be in the IRA.’

‘Turn left here.’ Collins slipped the gun back into his pocket and rested his feet on the dashboard. ‘When I was a teenager there was a big recruitment drive for the UDA and UVF. They were coming out of the woodwork like rot. I joined. Once you joined, though, it was hard to get out. I’d killed a man before I was twenty, Mr. Flint. I was a good soldier.’ He turned to gauge Miles’s reaction. His teeth were bared, and the words came out like slashes from a bright blade. ‘I took my orders and I did what I was told to. For thirteen bloody years, working for men like those ones we just left.’

‘So what happened?’

‘You wouldn’t believe it. You’d laugh.’

‘Try me.’

‘I don’t see why I should.’

‘Because of what happened back there? Because you need to?’

‘Maybe.’

‘So what happened?’

‘What happened?’ mimicked Collins. ‘I found myself crying for Bobby Sands, that’s what happened.’

They needed petrol, and decided to eat at a café behind the pumps. Miles’s senses were sharp now, and he examined the lunchtime customers for gun-toting executioners while Will Collins wolfed down fried potatoes and eggs.

‘I’ve got something to tell you, too, Will,’ he said.

‘Oh?’

‘But I’m not sure yet where to begin. Meantime, what about your story?’

Collins patted his shirt, signifying this time that he had eaten well. He lifted the mug of tea to his lips, still chewing, and studied Miles over the discolored ceramic rim.

‘Where was I?’

‘Crying over Bobby Sands.’

‘Oh yes.’ Collins turned his gaze to the greasy windows and the asphalt gathering of elderly trucks and cars beyond. ‘Well, I’d seen some things, maybe too much for my age, but I’d seen nothing like that hunger strike. So I decided to see how it would feel to go hungry. I locked myself in my room for a couple of days, survived on nothing but sips of water and my own company. I near went crazy, but it set me to thinking that to starve yourself slowly to death you’d have to be clinging to something worth dying for. Do you see? Dying with a gun was one thing, quick, a hero’s way to go, but a lonely starvation, well, that needed something more.’ He paused to light two cigarettes, handing one to Miles. ‘There were two of them died that year on hunger strike, and each death made me feel worse. It was as if I was the one starving them.’

‘So you switched allegiances?’

‘It wasn’t as easy as that, so don’t think it was. I had to leave my family and friends behind, knowing I could never go home, knowing they’d be after my blood. And there was no telling what the other side would do to me anyway. I mean, would they believe me, or would they just shoot me dead? I was walking blindfolded into it.’

Miles thought that he could see now why Will Collins had been so gentle with him, so willing to believe: his existence, too, depended upon belief.

‘But they did believe you?’

‘I’m not sure. I work hard and well for the cause, but there’s still a suspicion there, always the thought that if I can turn once, I can turn again.’

Collins was staring out of the window again, toward where their car sat.

‘At any rate,’ said Miles, ‘you’re still alive.’

‘Alive and kicking, no thanks to your friends. You know what I can’t understand? Why plan such a big operation to net a very small fish?’

Why indeed. Miles had been thinking the very same thing.

‘And there’s something else bothering me.’

‘What’s that?’

Collins nodded toward the window.

‘What does it say on that van just behind our car?’

Miles looked. He had to screw up his eyes to find a focus, but the writing was clear enough: MURPHY’S MEAT & POULTRY.

‘Christ, they’ve found us,’ he hissed, turning back toward Will Collins, but Collins was out of his seat and heading jauntily toward the toilets, leaving Miles on his own. He panicked: follow Collins or head out of the door? He chose the door, and stood beside it for several seconds staring out at the van. There were two faces behind its windscreen, but he did not recognize them, and they seemed not to recognize him. At least, their eyes glanced toward him and away again, intent on the car, the car with Champ’s blood on it.

‘Let’s go.’ It was Collins, moving past him and out of the door. ‘Just follow me and try to look casual.’

They were crossing the asphalt, passing right in front of the van and behind the crumpled boot of their car. Miles thought that Collins was about to stop there, but he merely paused while Miles caught up, then put his arm around his shoulders.

‘—and then he says to me, Mickey, he says—’ Collins began loudly, going on to tell some garbled anecdote, all the while gently propelling Miles toward the far corner of the car park. He stopped beside a Land Rover. ‘Here we are now.’ And then, to Miles’s astonishment, he produced a key from his pocket and opened the driver’s door. ‘Get in,’ he whispered, walking around to the passenger side. Miles got in.

‘How the hell did you—’

‘An old boy having a pee back there. I just tapped him on the head and took his keys. Before that he’d been telling me about what a fine jeep he had. Thank Christ there was only this one parked here. Our lucky day, Miles, is it not? Thanks be to sweet mother Mary.’

Miles was grinning like a monkey as he turned the ignition and drove sedately back past the butcher’s van and out of the lot. Collins rested his feet on the dashboard again.

‘Just follow the signs for Drogheda,’ he said. ‘Now, what was it you were going to tell me?’

‘You mean apart from telling you you’re a genius?’

‘Well, that’ll do for a start. Would it have been anything to do with our friends who seem so keen to see us again?’

‘In a way, yes.’

‘No subtlety, these people. That’s their problem.’

‘But they were right, weren’t they? I mean, you were supplying parts for bombs?’

‘Oh yes, but they could have cut our supplies at source. They must have known where the stuff was coming from. And they’d known about the factory for nearly a year to my knowledge.’

‘What have you been doing recently?’

The question smacked too much of interrogation, and Collins gave him a hard look.

‘Sorry,’ said Miles. ‘I shouldn’t have asked.’

‘Let’s see...’ Collins checked his watch. ‘It’s half past three. Well, I suppose I can tell you now, since it was due to go off at quarter past.’

‘What was?’

‘Our biggest job yet, a nice big bomb due to explode at three-fifteen in Kew Gardens, just as the Home Secretary was planting a tree for some new trust or whatever.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ muttered Miles, and then it hit him, that was why they had needed a gardener! Harvest had borne its bitter fruit all right, but the final clue had eluded them. They needed to plant the bomb. They needed a groundskeeper. ‘I was part of that surveillance.’

‘What?’

‘Watching the cell in London, the cell responsible. We were called off a week ago. A woman and three men, one of the men a groundskeeper.’

‘Somebody slipped up, then,’ said Collins.

‘More death.’ Miles wiped at his forehead, then stared at his hand, seeing the dull stain of Champ’s blood still upon it. His back hurt and he felt a little dizzy. In fact he was tingling all over. The road was rising and falling, and his stomach heaved like a sea squall. ‘So much needless death,’ he said. ‘Why?’

‘I don’t know, Mr. Flint,’ answered Collins. ‘As time goes on I find it harder to explain. To myself as well as to others.’ His voice had become very quiet. ‘To myself especially. I’ve seen it from both sides. And do you want to know something? They’re both the same.’

Miles nodded. He knew that now, too.

‘Can we stop for a breather?’ he asked, already slowing the Land Rover, signaling left, ready to explode into the fresh air.

‘They could be onto us at any moment,’ warned Collins.

‘Yes, I know, but we have to talk. There’s nothing else for it.’

Somehow, it was easier after that. They sat on a five-barred gate at the side of the road, facing in toward the fields, the Land Rover behind them on the verge, and the traffic roaring past beyond it.

Miles knew where to begin now, right at the beginning, smiling Cheshire cats and all. His initial fears, the disappearance of Phillips and the warning of Sinclair, and Billy’s warning, too. But he was surprised by the immediate interest of Collins, by the way he frowned, his face a mask of concentration.

And when he had finished, Collins jumped down from the gate into the field and began to walk away from him. He seemed, to Miles, to walk the length of the field, a good hundred yards. It was the farthest they had been apart since they had met. What was more, the car key had been left in the ignition. He could make his escape! He would not be caught; he could be away before Collins, running full pelt, was halfway back up the field.

But he didn’t; he sat there and watched Collins walking back toward him. His eyes were bright, and there was a wry smile on his lips, as if to say, I knew you would not go.

He heaved himself back onto the gate, which rattled ominously but held firm.

‘So that’s it,’ he said quietly.

‘It’s as much as I know,’ said Miles, while another lorry clattered past, pouring out rich, choking fumes.

‘Maybe,’ said Collins, ‘you know more than you think.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, since we’re in a mood for stories, how would you like to hear another one?’

Miles nodded, watching while Collins lit another two cigarettes, then jumped down from the gate again, leaning against it while he watched the traffic.

‘It makes me nervous, all this traffic. Everything moving so fast while I’m standing still. We’re targets.’

He stared intently at the traffic, using up the burning tobacco as though it were oxygen and he a drowning man.

‘I did a job once, rather a strange one, when I was very young. An assassination, you could call it, no questions asked. I’d been told that this man was a spy, something like that, and that he was dangerous to us. My job was to get to know him, then eliminate him. But then I found out that it wasn’t quite as straightforward as I’d thought.’

How straightforward is the murder of a stranger? Miles wanted to ask.

‘Go on,’ he said instead.

‘Oh, the man was a spy all right, just like you, Mr. Flint. But he wasn’t any danger to us. No, there was payment involved. A hundred rifles, as I recall. I’d been used as a hired assassin. There was nothing political in it, nothing to do with the cause, just plain payment of some guns in exchange for my services. I couldn’t do anything about it, of course. That would have been dangerous. So I played it by the book, their book, and I looked for a way to burn the pages. But I found a martyr instead.’ He rested for a moment, stubbing out the cigarette and lighting another. ‘The weapon I used, and the rifles, were delivered by an Israeli gentleman.’

Miles felt his fingers go limp, the cigarette threatening to fall to the ground.

‘Coincidence?’ he said.

‘Maybe. But you say that this Israeli who died in London was a gunrunner?’

‘A suspected gunrunner, yes.’

Collins nodded. ‘A couple of years ago,’ he said, ‘an old friend, still active in the north, sent me a message. It was brave of him. If he’d been caught, Christ knows what would have happened. He told me that there was a man asking questions about me. A funny guy, my friend said, spoke like an Englishman but carried an American passport.’

‘Did he have a name?’ asked Miles, thinking of Richard Mowbray, his heart beating wildly.

‘Yes, Gray. Andy Gray. I remember because it’s the name of a footballer, too.’

‘Andy Gray,’ Miles repeated, thinking hard. But he was thinking through great wads of cotton, his head like a dispensary. The name meant something to him. Andy Gray, yes, a footballer. Andrew Gray. An anagram of Mowbray? No, not even close.

Then he remembered: Billy Monmouth’s friend.

I’ve been in France. A company-funded shopping trip.

Billy hadn’t mentioned that he was American, though. What was it Richard Mowbray suspected? That there might be CIA moles within the firm. Billy Monmouth and his American friend. The ‘company’ being slang for the CIA itself. Well, well, well. Was it all coming together at last? Or was it exploding into too many fragments, like Kew Gardens this last half hour?

‘Does the name mean anything to you?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Miles, ‘not yet.’ Here perhaps was the trump card that would save his life: Collins was curious, and Miles held all the answers.

‘What about the assassination?’ he asked now. ‘Did you learn the victim’s name?’

‘Yes,’ replied Collins, staring into a distance of his own, ‘and I’ll never forget it. His name was Philip Hayton.’

‘Philip Hayton?’

‘Did you know him?’

‘I know of him, yes.’ And Billy had brought him into the conversation only a few weeks before. There was no coincidence.

‘Did he have a family? A wife and kids?’

‘No, I’m sure he didn’t,’ said Miles generously, unsure of the facts.

Collins nodded. He seemed almost soporific now, while Miles’s thoughts were moving faster and faster, trying to identify the terrain through which they traveled. Billy. Andrew Gray. The Israeli. And now Philip Hayton. Where was the connection?

There had to be one. There had to be.

‘What happened to this Gray?’

Collins shrugged, as though trying to heave a great weight from his back.

‘He asked around, flashed around quite a bit of money according to my friend, but what could anyone tell him? I was a traitor as far as they were concerned in Belfast, and no one wants to advertise their traitors, do they? Not unless they’re dead. I’d have thought you’d know about that.’

‘I’m not a traitor.’

‘Then why the hell are they after you?’

‘It’s not me they’re after, it’s us. I couldn’t see it until now, but the Israeli is the connection. He’s the lowest common denominator. What’s more, I know where we can find out more about this man Gray.’

‘Where?’

‘From a friend of mine.’

Collins gave him a steady look, his next question a formality.

‘I don’t suppose this friend lives in London, by any chance?’

‘Yes, he does.’

Collins shook his head.

‘No way,’ he said. ‘There’s no way on God’s earth that I’m going to let you go to London.’

‘Then come with me.’

‘It would be suicide.’

‘And if you stay here? Do you think they’ll stop coming at you?’

‘There’s a chance.’

‘Sure there’s a chance. A chance that you’ll be blindfolded and shot in some field, dropped into the sea like so much dead meat.’ Collins shivered, and Miles knew that he had hit another nerve. Of course: Hayton had been dumped at sea. It had been called a sailing accident, hadn’t it? A sailing accident with a great big bullet hole in the victim’s skull. The firm had covered that one up nicely, but why?

‘A chance,’ Miles continued, licking his parched lips, ‘that you’ll die without ever knowing why. At least if we go to London we might find out what it’s all about.’

He jumped off the gate, hoping it wasn’t too dramatic a gesture, and began to walk down the field, just as Collins had done. Will Collins was not a stupid man, and Miles was sure that finally he would agree to go. There was just the one problem now.

Would they reach Billy Monmouth alive?

Collins was lighting another cigarette from the butt of the old, and Miles, approaching, was about to say something about chain-smokers dying before they were forty. But he thought better of it when he saw the pistol in Collins’s hand.

‘No,’ Collins said, ‘no, we’re not going to England, Mr. Flint. We’re going to Drogheda, where I can be rid of you once and for all.’

Twenty-Two

‘It’s on the coast, then, this Drogheda?’

Collins nodded. He had been silent throughout the rest of the drive, and had given Miles a cold look whenever he had attempted to start up a conversation. So Drogheda was on the coast. The coast meant boats, and boats meant quick and invisible trips across the Irish Sea. Perhaps things were working themselves into a pattern much more to his advantage than anything he could have planned.

‘Drogheda,’ said Collins at last, as they turned into the town. Miles imagined himself as Perseus, entering the stony land of the Gorgons, but it was no use. The last thing he felt was heroic.

‘It was near here I killed Hayton. We went out to sea, and I shot him.’

‘Very neat,’ said Miles.

‘Not really. Have you ever killed anyone, Mr. Flint? Neatness doesn’t enter into it. There’s blood everywhere. It finds you and sticks to you. I kept finding flecks of it on me for days afterwards.’

‘And no questions were ever asked about Hayton’s disappearance?’

Collins shrugged.

‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. I went back to Belfast and tried to forget all about it.’

‘Until you found out you’d been tricked.’

‘You know, I’ll be glad to be rid of you, Flint. You sound like a conscience, but your eyes are full of tricks.’

Miles tried to smile. ‘I’m parched,’ he said. ‘Can we get something to drink soon?’

Collins pondered this. Yes, they had not had anything to drink for a long while, and there had been much talking since then. Miles watched as Collins was forced by the workings of his own mind into a remembrance of their joint confessions.

‘Yes,’ he conceded finally, ‘let’s find a pub.’

While Miles finished his whiskey, Collins made a telephone call, watching him intently from the wall-mounted pay phone. Miles smoked, feeling a taste in his lungs as though he had smoked twenty a day since childhood. He studied the bar, wondering what the chances were of a sudden, dashed escape. Will Collins’s stare told him that they were nil; his mind had been read. Collins was no fool. He knew that the nearer a man walked toward execution, the stronger became the life force, the desire to struggle and kick.

The bar’s conveniences lay somewhere outside at the back of the building. A straggle of men wandered in and out of a great oak door that bore the legend CAR PARK AND GENTS. The Land Rover was not parked out there, however. It lay some hundreds of yards away outside a fish and chip shop that had been opening for the evening as they had arrived. Collins had eaten a bag of chips, but Miles had not felt hungry. The whiskey, however, was beginning to bite at his empty stomach, the fumes as heavy as smoke within him. He examined his empty glass philosophically, motioned to Collins that he was having another, and approached the bar. Collins indicated that he did not want another drink. His half pint of stout sat on top of the telephone, a few sips missing from the top. He had not spoken into the receiver for some time, and this was his second call. Perhaps there was no judge and jury to be found at this time of the evening.

‘Another Jameson’s, please,’ said Miles, and the barman, nodding, sullen, went off toward the row of gleaming optics, while the few regulars, looking comfortable in their regular seats, stared into space, resolutely ignoring the Englishman and his English accent. An old and well-worn Rolling Stones record was playing on the jukebox, the sound so muted that it might as well not have been playing at all. Miles sneezed three times and blew his nose, wishing of a sudden that he could announce his Scottishness. I’m not English, he would tell them, I’m not to blame. To which they would, he knew, have replied that the worst of the Protestant incomers had been Scots. So he kept quiet, paying for the drink with the money given to him by Collins. He had not had the chance to change any of his own money, and he wondered, in a mad second, whether he could claim expenses from the firm for this part of his assignment.

‘Mr. Scott!’

Turning sharply, he found Millicent Nightingale beaming at him, her handbag clutched to her prodigious bosom. Behind her, three more members of the tour party were glancing around them, having just entered the bar.

‘Mrs. Nightingale!’

‘Millicent, silly. Call me Millicent.’

‘Millicent, how good to see you again.’ Looking across to where Collins stood, the receiver limp at his ear, eyes wild, Miles knew that the moment had come to a crisis. ‘Did you get my note?’

‘Your note, Mr. Scott?’

‘Yes, saying that I’d had to dash south on urgent business. Don’t say they didn’t give it to you at the hotel?’

‘But Mr. Scott, the guide told us that you’d been taken ill.’

‘Really? How strange.’

‘Anyway, you’re here now. Are you going to join us for the rest of the trip?’

‘Why, yes, Millicent, I might just do that.’

Collins had slammed down the receiver and was approaching. Miles decided to take the initiative. The whiskey had given him a poise that he hoped would outlast the situation.

‘Millicent, this is Mr. Collins. Will, I’d like you to meet a friend of mine, Millicent Nightingale.’

‘Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Nightingale.’ Collins made a pretense of checking his watch. ‘Eh, we’d better be going, hadn’t we?’

‘Nonsense,’ screeched Mrs. Nightingale, ‘not now that I’ve caught up with you at last, Mr. Scott. We must have one drink at least. The trip has been so exciting. There’s lots to tell you. We’re going to the cathedral tomorrow to see the head of the Blessed Oliver Plunkett. And besides, how can you leave when you haven’t even started your drink?’

Miles, smiling broadly, jiggled his glass of whiskey in Will Collins’s face as proof of this final remark. Drinks were being bought by the other members of the party, and Miles professed the need of another Jameson’s. It was then, seeing the look of complete and utter panic on Collins’s face, that Miles felt sure for the very first time that he would return home safely. It was a nice feeling, and he drank it in. Collins’s eyes might be as cold as the contents of an ice bucket, but nothing could scare Miles anymore, not even the obvious patting of a jacket pocket. He felt sure that everything was preordained, and therefore it made no sense to dither. He would get home safely; that was the main thing. How he went about it was, really, of little consequence and worth little preparation. He knocked back the whiskey in one satisfied gulp.

‘Just nipping out to the little boys’ room. Won’t be a moment.’ He smiled at Mrs. Nightingale, then at Collins, and headed toward the oak door.

Before he was halfway outside, Will Collins was behind him.

‘People will start to talk,’ Miles whispered, beginning to chuckle. He continued to chuckle on the short walk across the gravel-strewn yard.

‘What the hell was all that back there?’ hissed Collins. ‘And none of your tricks this time.’

‘That,’ said Miles, his mouth slack, ‘was the divine, the enchanting Mrs. Millicent Nightingale, executive officer in Her Majesty’s Inland Revenue, visiting this fair country. I met her in Belfast. I’d come across here, you see, in the guise of a holidaymaker. Quite the most ridiculous and obvious cover imaginable. My name was Walter Scott. You know, the novelist, Waverley and all that.’

‘You’ve had too much to drink,’ said Collins.

They had reached the toilet, a ramshackle affair with an ancient, soured urinal and a dark, festering object in one corner that might once have been a washbasin. Miles relieved himself noisily, smelling his whiskey breath in the chilled air. Collins stood in the doorway, arms folded.

‘Not having any joy contacting your friends?’ Miles asked, zipping himself in the half-light.

‘Not yet. But they know I’m in town.’

‘It’s a start.’

Miles was in the doorway now. He stared at Collins, his eyes a little glassy.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said. ‘You’re thinking that it would be nice to shoot me here and now. Then you could relax. But your bosses wouldn’t be very happy about that, because they would have wanted to interrogate me first, and they might think it a bit suspicious that you killed me before they’d had the opportunity. They would trust you less than ever, especially after your friend died at the factory and you managed to escape. Besides, what would Mrs. Nightingale say?’

Collins smiled.

‘No,’ he said, ‘if I was going to kill you, I’d do it out at sea.’

‘Very good,’ said Miles, wagging a finger. ‘A boating accident, as with poor old Philip Hayton. Yes, very professional. Well, shall we go back in?’

He made a sweeping gesture with his arm, and for just long enough Collins was fooled into moving on ahead of him. Miles brought out his own gun and pressed it into Collins’s back, pressed it hard so that there could be no mistaking it for a piece of wood or a bluffed finger.

‘One move and you’re no longer of this earth.’ It was hissed, snakelike, into the suddenly frozen ear. The breath that had seemed so full of drunken gaiety was filled now with nothing but sober, real threat. Miles grabbed the gun from Collins’s pocket and stuffed it into his own. Then he stepped back one pace.

‘Turn around slowly,’ he said, breathing deeply. The sudden implant of adrenaline was threatening to make him really drunk, and he gulped air as though it were water, diluting the alcohol.

Collins’s face was a mask. Was there hate there, or surprise, or a touch of relief that the weight had been shifted from him? His arms dangled now as though the life had left them. He was acting like a puppet, trying, thought Miles, quickly to do to me what I’ve just done to him.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘maybe you’d have taken me out to sea, Collins, but I’ve no such finesse. I’ll shoot you here and now if you so much as sneeze, so I hope you haven’t caught my cold.’

‘What now?’ said Collins. Miles shrugged.

‘I’ll have to think about that,’ he lied. ‘I’ve got time to think now. A rare luxury on this trip.’ He took the car keys from his pocket and held them up in front of him. ‘You’ll be doing a bit of the driving from now on. It gives me a sore back.’

He dropped the keys at Collins’s feet and stepped back.

‘Pick them up very slowly indeed.’ Collins did so. ‘Now, I would imagine that you know some fishermen in this part of the world?’ Collins furrowed his brow, uncomprehending. ‘We’re going to do a little fishing,’ said Miles. ‘I wonder what kind of fish we’ll find.’

As they moved across the car park and out onto the road, Miles could hear Mrs. Nightingale’s voice as it cooed to him from the oaken door:

‘Mr. Scott? Mr. Scott? Mr. Scott?’