Home Front

by Thomas Waugh

  “You’re a better lover than men half your age,” the courtesan replied, rubbing her leg against his.

  “Flattery will get you everywhere, lass.”

  She grinned and giggled, coquettishly.

  “You seem less tense tonight. But you have raised a smile, as well as raised other things, more this evening.”

  “You know me too well,” Mullen said, not knowing if this was a good thing or not, squeezing her thigh, affectionately, as best he could. “I have had things on my mind these past couple of weeks. But a burden has been lifted. It’s now a dead issue.”

  Mullen closed his eyes and pictured the look of terror and agony on Foster’s face as Nolan tortured him. Or rather Nolan was just a tool. “The Big Man” had ultimately tortured and killed John Foster. The soldier turned statesman gently grinned too as he heard his victim’s screams, from the video, over the sound of the whirring fan. The noise was as welcome as a hymn from any choir.

  The day when he had assassinated Byrne had felt good. But the night when he had heard news of the death of Foster had felt even better, like he had atoned for his sins. Finally, he might find some peace.

  Music played in the background. Dylan, again.

  “Got nothing for you, I had nothing before

  Don’t even have anything for myself anymore.”

  Marshal finally closed the laptop, squinting and pinching the bridge of his nose. He had just emailed Porter, asking if he could contact Mariner for some information. A plan was forming – falling into place like the squares on a Rubik’s cube.

  The dead of night. Air pollution extinguished the starless sky, like a blanket being pulled over a corpse. Marshal heard a woman laughing from the street outside, drunk or happy. One can equate to the other. The sound spiralled up through his open window and caused a pang in his chest. He regretted having poured the whisky down the sink. It was too late to call Grace or send her a message. Sometimes she woke up early and would read or go for a run, but not this early. Marshal decided that he would not get in touch even when she stirred though. He needed to be on point. He would soon begin to stalk his prey, with an eye to snaring it. Just over or under half of him wanted to hear Grace’s voice. See her. Kiss her. But Marshal needed to deny himself. Punish himself, for past and future sins. As a Catholic, Grace might appreciate his abnegation. But she would never know.

  Her perfume was fading in the apartment, being replaced by the scent of gun oil. And cigarette smoke. His breath must reek, Marshal thought. Thankfully, or not, he would not be kissing anyone goodnight. The ashtray was overflowing. The pyramid of butts appeared as if it might collapse under its own weight at any moment.

  Marshal heard another burst of laughter from outside and felt another twinge. The dull ache in his stomach was now different. Making Grace laugh was one of his favourite things in the world. It never got old. He noticed how a layer of dust was forming on his books and furniture. Only now did he begin to appreciate how much Grace kept his home clean and tidy. The day they spent in the chapel, where he prayed and thought about marrying her, seemed an age away. He felt as weary as a medieval pilgrim who had just learned that Jerusalem was no longer in Christian hands. Life had whittled away at him. Life was not sculpturing him, to turn him into something beautiful, useful or good. Life was just eroding him, turning him into nothingness. Grinding him into dust.

  “The emptiness is endless, cold as clay,

  You can always come back, but you can’t come back all the way.

  Only one thing that I did wrong

  I stayed in Mississippi a day too long.”

  14.

  His head was throbbing like it was the morning after. But the night was just beginning for Fergal Nolan, unfortunately for him. The last thing he remembered was walking home and blacking out, but not from the five pints of Guinness he had consumed in one of his local pubs in Kilburn. His crown hurt, but again not from the Guinness. Marshal had appeared out the shadows on a quiet side street and struck his quarry on his head with a cosh. He had waited there the previous two evenings for Nolan to walk past on his own, but the street had been occupied with passers-by. But the soldier was used to being patient. Marshal quickly bundled the brutish rag-doll body into the back of a large white van he had rented for cash, under a false name. He secured his prisoner and injected him with a mild sedative, to keep him quiet while he drove to the location in Kent which Mariner had provided. No one looked twice at a white van in Kent.

  A week had passed since Marshal first pored over the intelligence files. He focused his reconnaissance on Nolan, heading out each day with a bottle of mineral water and a copy of Graham Greene’s The Tenth Man. The thug would be the key to unlocking the door to get to Duggan and Mullen. The locations of both pubs that his target frequented meant that Nolan would pass through an alley, leading onto the street where he lived. There was an absence of CCTV cameras in the area. Marshal’s pulse raced, with gratification as well as nerves, when Nolan had walked through the alley, coughing and then spitting out some phlegm.

  Although initially groggy and disorientated, Nolan soon took in his surroundings and the dire situation he was in. The van was a similar size to the one they had used to kidnap the British soldier. Tall enough for a man to stand up in. Nolan’s face was pale – and not because he was Irish. The air was still balmy, yet the captive understandably shivered. His shoes and socks had been removed. The back of the vehicle smelled of a mixture of oil, bleach, and fried chicken. The worn, dark carpet resembled burnt toast. A solitary, dirty, cobweb-strewn bulb hung down from the roof. The prisoner was strapped to a metal chair, back, arms and legs. He hummed and grunted through the tape covering his mouth. Plastic ties cut into his wrists, fastened behind his back. The more he struggled, like a worm wriggling on a hook, the more they bit into his skin. But still he struggled, in vain.

  Nolan was accustomed to being the abductor, rather than abductee. The enforcer was always mindful that he could one day receive a taste of his own medicine, but he believed he would be in danger in Belfast, not London. His mind raced as best it could, tripping over hurdles, as Nolan thought who could be responsible for his present fate. He had plenty of enemies, but few would dare to make such a move. If he got out of this alive, the relevant enemies would be dead men walking, he vowed.

  Marshal, having stationed himself behind his captive, appeared in front of Nolan, after noticing him stir. He was wearing a black balaclava, along with a black t-shirt, black jeans, black, steel capped boots, and blue surgical gloves. Nolan’s bulging eyes were wide with rage or terror, as if they were about to burst out of his head like a cartoon character. He checked out Marshal’s forearms for any revealing tattoos, but there were none. As menacing as it may have been to see the figure towering over him, wearing a balaclava, Nolan took comfort that his enemy was keeping his face hidden. If he showed his face, then it was likely Nolan would be killed to prevent him from taking his revenge or identifying him. He was pleased to see a lack of plastic sheeting on the floor too. There was a good chance he could survive the night.

  “I am going to torture you, like you tortured John Foster. But, unlike John Foster, you will have the opportunity to come out of this alive,” Marshal remarked, his voice as calm as a rockpool. He was unerringly courteous, before potentially being unerringly cruel. Marshal did not quite know if he was playing the part of a sociopath, or being one in earnest. The captor removed the strip of tape from his captive’s mouth. Nolan’s skin smarted, but it could be the least of the discomfort he might endure.

  “Who the fuck are you? Do you know who I am? What do you want?” the prisoner asked. His throat felt as rough as a matchhead.

  “I have not brought you here to ask questions. You are here to answer them. Firstly, what is the number to unlock your phone?” Marshal said, withdrawing the device from his pocket. He had tried to access the phone back in Kilburn, but he needed the correct four-digit code.

  Nolan pursed his lips and snorted. The enforcer�
�s stony expression cracked a little. He appeared visibly torn. The messages and video on his phone would damn him. But being uncooperative might damn him in a different way.

  “You’ve got the wrong man,” Nolan insisted, unconvincingly.

  “I’ll be the judge of that. I know far more about you, Fergal, than you know about me. You may deem that as unfair, but we both know that life can be unfair,” Marshal expressed. His voice was laced with both iciness and good humour. The hole in the balaclava around his mouth framed a polite, menacing smile. Nolan shifted in his chair once more – either unsettled, or he was testing the strength of his bonds. “Let me provide some evidence of how familiar I am with your history.”

  Marshal walked behind his prisoner once more and retrieved a small trolley, the kind one would find in a care home to help serve its bedridden residents. One of the wheels squeaked as he positioned it in front of Nolan, who gulped and wriggled in his chair again. The items on the trolley, laid out like surgical instruments, included a clawhammer, pliers, craft knife, a cordless drill and a can of lighter fluid.

  “What is this?” Nolan said, with a modicum of confusion and innocence. Unconvincingly.

  “I read one report which alleged that, when you tortured your victims with a clawhammer, you used one side on the left foot and the other on the right. Now, tell me your passcode,” Marshal said, his tone as flat and blunt as the face of the hammerhead he picked up. “You have five seconds. One.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Two.”

  “This is fucking crazy. There’s nothing on the phone.”

  “Three.”

  “Let’s talk about this. We can come to an arrangement.”

  “Four.”

  “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

  Marshal sighed a little. Without saying a word, he placed the tape back over Nolan’s mouth and smashed the flat end of the hammer against the prisoner’s right foot three times. Bones cracked, snapping like sticks. With a flick of the wrist Marshal then turned the tool around and pounded the claw end of the hammer against Nolan’s left foot with three powerful blows. Blood and sinew freckled the interrogator’s balaclava. Nolan’s foot was a giant wound. The white of bone could be seen through glistening flesh, like ancient gold coins glinting through the mud at an archaeological dig. A writhing Nolan let out a muffled threnody of screams and curses. Tears began to trickle down his rugged face. The Catholic, somewhat more lapsed than others, also offered up a prayer for mercy. But God seemed to have wax in his ears. Marshal was similarly impervious to the idea of forgiveness, his heart as hard as a mortuary slab. Cruelty, not clemency, was the order of the day.

  He removed the tape. Nolan gunned out a stream of swear words, in between ululating and seething. The gangster, or businessman as he sometimes labelled himself, also breathlessly asked his torturer how much money he would accept to let him go. The bribe was then followed by a threat, and an appeal for mercy. Nolan revealed that he was going to be a father.

  “A child needs a father,” the Irishman half-asserted, half-sobbed.

  “Jack Foster was a father. It is a pity you didn’t feel that way a few weeks ago. You might not have then killed him and ended up here.”

  Blood vomited out of his left foot and then oozed, steadily. When Marshal picked-up the can of lighter fluid on the trolley, the numbers to his password started to pour out of Nolan’s mouth, like compliments gushing from a sycophant. The interrogator asked a few follow-up questions concerning his relationship with his employers, John Mullen and Sean Duggan. The information helped to fill in some of the gaps in Mariner’s files.

  Marshal retreated behind his prisoner again and viewed the video of Foster’s murder on the phone, which Nolan had recorded for his employer. Mullen had instructed his operative to delete the video, but Nolan had refrained from doing so. The sadist enjoyed re-watching the old soldier’s torture and death. He also calculated that the video may come in handy in the future. He could blackmail Mullen over it one day or use it as a bargaining chip if ever he was pinched and in danger of being put away for a long stretch.

  His face twitched a few times in response to the scenes on the screen, but for the most part Marshal remained seemingly dispassionate as he watched the abhorrent video. The balaclava made his head hot. The material began to irritate his scalp. But he kept it on. He took a breath, like an actor about to go on stage, and hit his mark once more in front of Nolan.

  “Despite what your feet have recently endured, you can still walk away from this. I am happy to torture you until there is a united Ireland, but I have no desire to kill you, Fergal. Just give me the information I need. Tell me about the operation to abduct Foster. I am already familiar with some of the details – and I have just watched your video – so I will know if you are lying or keeping anything from me,” Marshal sated, his voice sterner than before, his features tighter beneath the balaclava, as he picked up the can of lighter fluid and squirted half its contents over his captive, as if he were squeezing washing-up liquid all around a bowl.

  Nolan whimpered and recoiled, as if the fluid had already turned into flames. The blood-soaked carpet soon became piss-soaked too. The interrogatee was in little doubt that, unlike threats made in an interview room by the police, the figure in front of him would make good on his word. Contrary to the literature Freedernity distributed, torture worked. Nolan clung to the hope that he would be able to survive the ordeal if he cooperated. If his captor intended to kill him at the end of the interrogation, after wringing him dry of information, he would not have concealed his face, the abductee reasoned. As wary as he might be in the future for having betrayed Mullen, Nolan was terrified of the blood-splattered tormentor who held his life in his hands right now.

  The loyal republican began to talk. He even babbled on occasion. Mullen had received a signed and dedicated copy of Thatcher’s Willing Executioners a week before the killing. Duggan called Nolan over from Belfast, along with his niece and nephew. It did not take too long to track Foster down. They trailed their target for a day, partly to assess that the authorities had not assigned a security detail to him. Mullen decided to move quickly, lest Foster decided to flee the country or go into hiding. A team of four watchers coordinated to stalk their prey. Nolan remained, with two other men, in a van, a few minutes away, at all times - ready to close in. Foster’s inebriated state on leaving the pub made it easy to abduct the ex-soldier. He was driven to an old IRA safehouse, just outside of Tring, in Buckinghamshire. The prisoner was tortured throughout the night. Nolan swore on the Bible that he had been but a spectator during the bloodletting, but Marshal had already seen evidence to the contrary during the video. Nolan also insisted that Mullen gave the order to execute Foster. “It was all Mullen. I was just following orders.” After dumping the body on Herbert Crescent, which was reported to be Duggan’s idea, the van was driven to a gypsy camp in Essex, which helped distribute drugs for the Real IRA, where it was disposed of.

  The prisoner rambled on, divulging as much detail as possible. The more he talked, the less he would be tortured, he instinctively reasoned. It was understandably difficult to ascertain how satisfied his masked inquisitor was with his confession.

  “Mullen has got his fingers in all sorts of pies. He’s still in bed with the IRA, despite all the bollocks he comes out with on TV. He even headed up a funding trip to the US last year, on the condition that he was given ten percent of any money that was raised… Yes, Duggan took the shot from across the building to kill Byrne. I know where Duggan keeps his bug-out bag, with a stash of cash inside. Let me go and I’ll tell you where it is. You can have it all…”

  The ardent republican talked until his throat ran dry. Marshal offered his prisoner several mouthfuls of water, to remedy his rasping voice. The offer was gratefully accepted. The small act of kindness gave Nolan a small measure of hope. Surely, if his interrogator intended to kill him, he would not bother to give him water. In t
ruth, Marshal had let Nolan drink in order to moisten his throat - so as to better understand what he was saying through his thick accent.

  “I don’t know anything more, my hand to God. If you let me go, I won’t even tell Mullen about this,” Nolan insisted, thinking how he would not rest until he caught-up with the man in front of him. He wanted the man standing over him to be sitting in the chair. Nolan would let his prisoner live, in order to torture him for longer. “I’ll disappear.”

  “That you will,” Marshal replied, emotionlessly, before removing his balaclava. He knew that by wearing the garment, Nolan might believe he would be released after his ordeal - if he cooperated. Marshal felt the slight temptation to torture his friend’s killer for torture’s sake. He could drill into his kneecap. Or chin. Or temple. But the soldier told himself that he wasn’t a sadist.

  “Don’t kill me,” Nolan pleaded, his eyes widening once more. Relieving his bladder once more. Wriggling in his chair once more. His voice cracking once more. All in vain.

  The tape was placed over his mouth, for the last time.

  Marshal walked around the back of his captive, wrapped his muscular right arm around Nolan’s throat and crushed his windpipe, as the lightbulb began to flicker overhead. As he relentlessly tightened his hold Marshal pictured scenes from the video in his mind’s eye. If Nolan somehow put up a fight, Marshal failed to notice.

  There was still work to be done. He rolled the corpse up in the second-hand square of carpet he had bought and placed in the back of the van. He hauled the body out and lifted it over his shoulder. The vehicle was parked next to an abandoned wharf. The building was due to be demolished in a month’s time. Mariner had recommended the location. Porter had forwarded the information on, without comment.