‘If we’re going to work together we might as well try and get on,’ she said finally, tiring of the silence between them and Doyle’s apparent indifference. He seemed distant, his mind focused on something far beyond the pub and the music that filled it.
He nodded slowly.
‘Is it me?’ she asked.
He looked puzzled.
‘You’ve hardly said a word since we left Westley’s office,’ she told him.
‘I was thinking about something,’ he told her.
‘Maguire?’ she wondered.
‘Maguire. His renegades. This whole fucking job.’ He took another swallow from his glass. ‘Westley and Donaldson are crazy if they think we’ll be able to catch him.’
‘You think he’s going to be that hard to track down?’ she said.
‘Finding him won’t be a problem, but I’m damned if I’m going to waste valuable time trying to make him see the error of his ways.’ Doyle emphasised the words with scorn. “Or that it would be in his own interests to give himself up. When the time comes I’m going to kill him, because you can bet your arse he’s going to try and kill us.’
‘Donaldson and Westley won’t like it.’
‘Then let them find him and bring him in.’ Doyle finished what was left in his glass, then got himself another. Georgina watched him as he stood at the bar, telling the barman to make it a double Scotch this time. He paid and returned to the table.
‘How do you want to play this one?’ she enquired. ‘Once we’re there.’
He shrugged.
‘Married couple,’ he suggested. ‘Boyfriend-girlfriend. Something like that. Mr and Mrs Average.’
She nodded and ran a hand through her hair, her green eyes fixed on him.
‘I heard they wanted you to retire after what happened,’ she said. ‘Why didn’t you?’
‘Retire to what? Sitting around in some fucking nursing home counting my scars and drawing a disability pension once a month?’ He shook his head. ‘They wanted me to retire because they didn’t like my methods. When I got hurt it just gave them some extra leverage to get me out. So they thought.’
‘You were lucky to survive. Why put your life on the line again and again? And don’t tell me it’s patriotism.’
‘I never pretended it was. I enjoy what I do.’ He looked directly at her, almost surprised when she held his gaze. ‘What about you? Why did you get into this line of work in the first place?’
‘I went through the usual channels,’ she told him. ‘Undercover, plain-clothes. When the chance came to join the Counter-Terrorist Unit I took it.’
Why?’
‘My brother was killed by the IRA two years ago. A bomb had gone off in Belfast city centre; he was helping get people into an ambulance when one of their snipers shot him. He was only twenty.’
‘So it’s a revenge thing for you?’
‘I suppose you could say that. Isn’t it with you?’
‘It’s not revenge, it’s hatred,’ he told her flatly. ‘I should have died that day in Londonderry. The doctors said I didn’t have any right to survive, considering the extent of the injuries.’ He looked down into his glass, as if seeking his next sentence in the liquor. ‘I’ve been living on borrowed time ever since. It’s just a matter of how long before that time runs out. That’s why I live life day to day. I could be dead tomorrow, why worry about it? There’s no point looking beyond tomorrow.’
‘I can see it’s going to be a bundle of laughs working with you, Doyle,’ she said, smiling thinly.
‘Then don’t work with me. Why did you volunteer in the first place?’
‘Because no one else would work with you.’
‘And what makes you so different?’
‘I know how you feel.’
‘Because of what happened to your brother?’ He shook his head. ‘No one knows how I feel, Georgie. I don’t expect them to. I don’t want them to try.’ He tapped his temple. ‘What goes on in here is my business, nobody else’s.’
She sipped her drink, studying him over the rim of the glass.
‘So we’re agreed, then,’ she said finally.
‘On what?’ he asked, looking puzzled.
‘When we find Maguire, we kill him.’
Doyle smiled, and for the first time she saw something approaching warmth in the gesture.
It passed as rapidly as it had appeared.
‘Cheers,’ he said, raising his glass.
They left the pub together, separated on the corner of the street and went in different directions, Doyle towards Hyde Park comer, Georgie towards Green Park.
It was 12.36 a.m.
And that time was duly noted by the figure who had sat patiently at the wheel of the Granada since they’d entered the pub.
Watching.
Waiting.
PART TWO
‘We are born into a world where alienation awaits us.’
– R. D. Laing
‘Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought.’
– Joseph Addison
Twenty-Two
BRITTANY, FRANCE:
The cyclist tottered uncertainly, swaying from side to side as he struggled to negotiate the hill.
Catherine Roberts slowed down, watching the man warily in case he fell off into the path of her car, then finally accelerated past him, glancing at his face in the process. He looked ready to drop.
Not surprising in this heat. It poured through the windscreen as if the Peugeot were some kind of mobile greenhouse. She wiped a hand across her forehead, annoyed that the window on her side was stuck fast and could not be wound down. The air being blown into the car was hot and dry. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat as she drove, feeling the perspiration on her back and her legs. She drove barefoot, the pedals of the car warm beneath her skin.
She’d rented the car at the airport when she’d landed about an hour ago; now she was nearing the end of her journey.
Signposts, standing there like count-down markers, told her that the village of Machecoul was close.
On the back seat of the car was a small suitcase containing the bare minimum of clothes and necessities. She didn’t know how long she was going to be in France.
She didn’t even know why she was here, or what she was going to see.
Channing’s brief phone conversation with her hadn’t exactly been exhaustive in its detail.
The call had come unexpectedly; she hadn’t seen him for months. She wondered what had made her agree to come. Curiosity? Perhaps she wanted to see him again. She shook her head, answering her own unspoken question. No, it wasn’t that. What had happened between them was in the past now, dead and buried, and she, for one, had no wish to resurrect it. Her journey, she told herself, was in the pursuance of professional interest. It was an answer pretentiously contrived enough to persuade her.
Despite the heat that filled the car, ahead of her the clouds were dark, looming over the hills that surrounded Machecoul like gloomy portents of rain to come. Perhaps the weather would break up. She hoped it would, right now, so that she could be free of the stifling heat inside the car. Her long dark hair was tied back, pulled back a little too severely from her thin face. Yet to enter her thirty-fourth year, she was a little concerned to see the lines around her eyes. Some were uncomfortably deep to be passed off as laugh-lines. There were others under her chin, too. Irritated by her own vanity she drew her attention away from the rear-view mirror and concentrated on the road once more.
She passed a sign which proclaimed she was just five kilometres from the village she sought.
Again the thought slipped to the forefront of her mind.
What did Channing want her to see?
What had he found here that was so important?
She noticed that the road was beginning to slope downwards now. She could see the tops of houses as she turned a comer. The hills levelled out beneath her, sloping down towards the village itself. Most of the buildings were on the valley floor, others
clung to the hillsides as if some frantic architect had flung them there.
Two children playing by the roadside glanced inquisitively at the car as she passed. One waved and Cath smiled and waved back. She wondered if all the natives would be as friendly.
She drove slowly through the centre of the village, glancing around the market square, looking for the inn where she knew Channing was staying and where he had booked her in, too. She finally found it and parked, glad to be out of the baking confines of the Peugeot. She picked up her suitcase and wandered into the small reception area which was delightfully cool and smelt of freshly-picked flowers.
The plump woman who owned the place greeted her warmly and Cath responded, using what little French she could remember to good effect.
She asked if Mr Channing was around.
He wasn’t, she was told, as she was led up to her room. Once inside she thanked the plump woman, closed the door and headed straight for the bathroom, where she stripped and stepped beneath the shower, washing away the perspiration and also the grime of the flight and drive. She dried her hair quickly, wrapped a towel around herself and padded back into the bedroom where she began unpacking.
She had just pulled on a clean blouse and skirt when there was a knock on the door. Cath crossed to it and found she had a visitor.
Mark Channing smiled thinly when he saw her, stepping into the room, pulling her to him and kissing her on the cheek.
The greeting of a friend, not a former lover.
He asked how her flight and the drive from the airport had been. He told her she looked well. The usual bullshit, she thought, polite conversation.
She thought how terrible he looked.
Channing looked pale and his eyes were sunken, the lower lids puffy. He hadn’t shaved for a couple of days.
‘Are you feeling ok?’ she asked him, genuinely concerned at his haggard appearance.
He smiled but it looked more like a sneer.
‘I haven’t been sleeping very well,’ he told her, the smile fading as if even the recollection of the nightmares was painful.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘are you going to put me out of my misery? Tell me what you dragged me over here for?’ She smiled.
The gesture wasn’t reciprocated. Channing got to his feet. Already he was heading for the door.
‘Mark,’ she said, surprised. ‘What have you found?’
He swallowed hard.
‘It’s simpler if I show you. Come on.’
Twenty-Three
COUNTY CORK, THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND:
The accident had happened less than ten minutes ago.
Looking at the wreckage, Callahan could only guess at what had happened.
The road which led past his estate and into the nearby village of Glengaire was narrow, flanked on both sides by tall hedges and trees. Scarcely wide enough to accommodate two cars side by side, let alone a car and an articulated lorry.
The huge Scania had skidded across the road, flattening about twenty yards of hedge in its wake.
It looked as though it had hit the car head-on.
He thought it was a Sierra but, from the damage the vehicle had sustained, it was virtually impossible to tell. The car looked as if it had been put into a huge vice and crushed.
As yet, there was no sign of the passengers.
The only signal that there had even been anyone in the pulverized car was the amount of blood on the road.
Callahan sat intently behind the wheel of the Mercedes, window wound down, eyes fixed on the scene of carnage before him.
In the passenger seat Laura wriggled slightly, her short skirt pulled up almost to her thighs. Beneath it she wore no underwear and, as she too looked at the scene of devastation, she felt a warm glow spreading between her legs. She leaned forward to get a better look, her breath coming in low gasps as she watched the blood running across the road.
A member of the Garda walked across to the cab of the lorry and looked up into it.
The windscreen was shattered, spider-webbed where the driver’s head had connected so forcefully with it. There was blood inside the cab, smeared on the shattered glass.
The Garda man opened the driver’s side door and peered in.
The driver was slumped across the seats, blood pouring from his face and head. Both his eyes were closed, sealed shut by the congealing gore, it seemed.
Laura shifted in her seat once more, aware of the growing wetness between her legs. She glanced quickly across at her husband and smiled, one hand slipping onto her own thigh, stroking the smooth flesh, increasing her excitement.
From where they were parked, the Mercedes was hidden from the view of those on the road by a low hedge, but the Callahans had an excellent sight of all that was unfolding before them. One of their gardeners had heard the crash while working out by the perimeter wall which ringed their estate. He had mentioned it in passing to Callahan and the Englishman and his wife had driven to the scene immediately.
It had been worth it.
They had even beaten the ambulance and fire brigade to the crash.
‘I wonder how many are in the car?’ said Laura quietly, one hand now gliding up between her thighs, the fingers brushing her tightly-curled pubic hairs.
How ever many there were, Callahan thought, there wasn’t going to be much of them left.
‘I wonder if the driver’s dead in the lorry,’ Laura breathed, taking her index finger and slowly licking the moisture from its tip. She could see the Garda man walking back to his car, speaking into his radio. His feet left bloodied imprints on the tarmac where he’d walked through the blood that had spilled over the road.
In the distance they heard a siren.
The ambulance had come from the village, Callahan reasoned. It pulled up beside the lorry and two uniformed men jumped out, hurrying across to the cab. One climbed up into it, the other crossed to the car and inspected the wreck. He turned away swiftly, his face pale.
Laura felt the wetness between her legs increase.
More sirens.
Another ambulance. A fire engine.
They too pulled up next to the stricken vehicles, their crews spilling out, swarming around the wreck like ants round a piece of raw meat.
Callahan looked on intently as two of the firemen began cutting into the wreck with oxy-acetylene cutters, working their way around a shape in the front of the car.
The Garda man had taken off his hat and was leaning back against the bonnet of his car, breathing heavily into one hand as he watched the rescue operation.
The fireman removed a panel in the side of the car about four feet square.
The body didn’t so much fall as ooze out.
From the shape of the corpse, Callahan guessed that nearly every bone in the man’s body must have been crushed in the horrendous impact with the lorry. The steering column had been driven back into his chest, shattering his ribs. The top half of his body looked as if it had been wrapped in a crimson blanket. And yet his eyes were open as they pulled him out. Stretched wide in terror, perhaps, as he’d realized the inevitable end seconds before it had happened?
One arm had been almost severed at the shoulder.
Laura rubbed her thighs more tightly together, her breathing growing deeper, the wetness from her vagina now beginning to seep onto the material of the seat beneath her.
When the driver was lifted onto the roadside she could see that his stomach had been split open as surely as if it had exploded from inside. Thick lengths of intestine throbbed in the hole, spilling free as he was laid on the grass beside the road.
The Garda man finally lost his battle of will and vomited down the side of the car.
The firemen began to remove the second body.
It was a woman.
At least Callahan thought it was.
Glass from the smashed windscreen had flown back into the car and effectively shredded her face, ripping the skin beyond recognition. Portions of her features merely slid from her skul
l as she was lifted free.
The force with which she had been thrown forward had ensured that her body had been crushed up against the dashboard, her hips and legs pulped, one of them little more than tendrils of dripping muscle and flesh. But her head was where the worst damage had occurred.
As she was laid on the blood-spattered road, part of the top of her skull seemed to fall away and a thick slop of brain spilled from the mashed cranium. The fireman holding her head wiped his hands on his tunic and turned away. It must have been like touching an overripe rotten peach, Laura thought, watching as more sticky brain matter dribbled onto the road.
Laura was breathing loudly now, rubbing her thighs together with almost rhythmic precision as the feeling grew more powerful. She could feel the sensations building, the moisture between her legs flowing freely. Her nipples were achingly erect and she leant forward an inch or two more, her eyes fixed on the wrecked car, her body now quivering all over.
She sucked in a breath which rasped in her throat; she wanted to close her eyes, to enjoy the feeling more fully but she did not want to deprive herself of the sights before her widening eyes. She ground herself more strongly into the seat, her thighs clenched tightly together as she rocked back and forth, flicking her lips with her tongue, knowing that the moment of supreme pleasure was almost upon her.
Callahan glanced across at her and smiled.
As they lifted the remains of the baby from the wreckage, she climaxed.
Twenty-Four
BRITTANY, FRANCE:
‘How did you find it?’
Catherine Roberts’ voice echoed inside the still confines of the church. Her eyes never left the object before her.
‘Virtually by accident,’ Channing explained. He described how he had inadvertently uncovered the window.
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