Vagabond

by Seymour, Gerald

  They were into the traffic. Danny sat straight-backed in his seat and looked for the tail of the Mercedes.

  ‘Why did you come?’

  ‘Because I need to see for myself. Then I can be confident.’

  ‘You don’t trust me?’

  ‘I trust you, but I trust myself more. I can’t see it.’

  ‘I have them. I don’t share well, Danny.’

  ‘It’s a habit of the trade.’

  ‘What did you do, back where you came from?’

  ‘Walked into people’s lives, fucked them, squeezed them for what was needed, walked out on them – never a backward glance. A few lives saved, a few lost. I think I can see the car.’

  Gaby Davies would look after the Irish. He had his own job to fulfil. It was about the priorities laid down by Matthew Bentinick. He had his cigarettes out and put two between his lips, lit them and passed one to the Czech. The pace quickened, the road opened and the lights towards a bridge favoured them. Now the Mercedes was wedged behind a long-distance bus and could not avail itself of its engine power. They dragged on their cigarettes and smoke billowed around them. He did not expect to be thanked for riding shotgun – and unarmed – on Bentinick’s business.

  It was that time in the evening. If both were at home, one would always, without comment, leave what they were doing and go upstairs. If it was Rosie, she would put down the paper with the crossword or close her laptop. If it was Matthew he would put away the file he’d been reading, or pour himself a meagre malt, then slowly climb the stairs. As he was at home it was his turn. His suit jacket was on a hanger in the wardrobe but he had kept on his waistcoat and tie. When he reached the landing, he paused – always did.

  It hurt as much as it had on the first day – weeks, months, years ago. The pain was constant.

  So few knew – Rosie’s sister did. Matthew Bentinick had no relations he was close to, but at work he had shared the matter of his daughter, what had been done to her, with George and Jocelyn, who was a confidante and a friend. Both had shoulders on which he could lean. The matter was not discussed between himself and Rosie. They felt it would hurt even more if they continued to go over it.

  He hesitated at the door, then took the handle. The sign was still there, purloined from a hotel in the Lake District where they had stayed in the spring two months before she had gone away: The Room Is Ready for Tidying. A joke. Their daughter had never left her bedroom trashed, with unwashed clothes and an unmade bed. He opened the door, went inside and closed it behind him. The room was a raw wound.

  He sat down in the chair where he had read aloud – back from the Province on leave – Beatrix Potter, Winnie the Pooh, even bloody Ivanhoe. An only child and . . . Hockey stick still there, the one for lacrosse and the school-team photographs on the wall. It had broken the bank to keep her there. He scratched in his pocket for his lighter, lit the candle and saw the picture of her with the children. The tears streamed down his face but he wouldn’t allow them to choke his voice. He never had and hoped he never would.

  ‘Hello, my love, not a bad day. I’m just back from Prague. You’d have liked it – a modern city in old clothing, crawling with young people drinking themselves to death and smoking for an early grave. But my pipe caused interest. Grand buildings and lovely churches. Unlike Warsaw and Budapest, Prague wasn’t fought through. It survived the war intact. Nice place, and I’d like to think that, one day, we might get there, all of us. Anyway, Mary, you don’t want to listen to my ramblings. Best you get some sleep. By the by, I think my visit to Prague will kick up some interesting developments but we’ll have to hang on for another couple of days to find out how interesting. Sleep well, Mary . . .’

  He let the candle burn. There was a big rucksack in the corner behind the sports kit. He’d carried it downstairs for her when she’d gone and had carried it back upstairs when she’d returned. He never tried to staunch the tears, just let them flow.

  In a couple of days, if it went well, he’d tell her about it.

  A light knock, and George’s head was round the door. ‘Hope I’m not disturbing.’

  Jocelyn thought him economical with the truth. Other than to see her, there was no earthly reason that the director general should be at her door. ‘Always a pleasure.’

  ‘Possible to ask? When?’

  ‘Seems to be twenty-four hours away, or forty-eight. Won’t be longer than that.’

  ‘And you’re confident, you and Matthew?’

  She faced him and a smile lit her face. ‘As confident as we can be, George. It could go well, but then again . . .’

  No one else could speak to him so boldly.

  He said, ‘I feel I’m at the helm, and a storm’s in the rigging, but I’m betting that by hook or by crook we’ll make harbour.’

  Did she laugh with or at him? ‘Of course, but it won’t be Windermere on a Sunday afternoon when the gale’s blowing. I think it’s falling into place, but not without risk.’

  ‘Matthew’s put a good man in place.’

  ‘He may need to be better than good. Thank you, George.’

  It was always the way when control slipped further from the centre: predictions meant less, and luck was valued more.

  The ride in the Mercedes was smooth and comfortable. Neither man spoke before they were out of the city. There were lorries ahead and few opportunities to overtake.

  Ralph Exton had known the brigadier since the man was in the gutter – had seen him at the bottom of the heap.

  ‘What is it? Fifteen years since we met up? How is Timofey keeping? Well, I hope.’

  ‘When he is sensible, he is well.’

  ‘He’s always sensible, isn’t he?’

  The former brigadier spoke so softly that Ralph Exton had to strain to hear him. The heater was on and its warmth lulled him.

  ‘He is sensible when he listens to me – not always sensible when he does not.’

  ‘Sorry, that sounds outside my area. I asked if he was well.’

  ‘In good health when sensible. Sickening when he is a fool.’

  ‘So, right now, he’s well or ill?’

  ‘I think he is not well.’

  ‘And the cause? A virus? A diet problem?’

  ‘You are the problem, Mr Exton. You give him sickness. It is because of you that he is neither well nor sensible.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘He should not have business with you. He should have ignored your request for help. A silly little deal for which he gets nothing. For Timofey Simonov to trade weapons with you in a quantity that a leader or an organised-crime group would consider irrelevant is not sensible. I told him to dismiss the idea. My advice was ignored. He does business with men we think we trust, but cannot be certain, here in his own quarter, and compromises himself. You are here and should not be. You are not worth the possibility of danger.’

  ‘Eloquently put.’

  ‘May I tell you some things, Mr Exton?’

  ‘It’s your car and I’m captive. Feel free.’

  ‘Do you know of the city of Yekaterinburg, the gate to Siberia?’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Listen very carefully, Mr Exton, and do not interrupt me.’

  ‘I’m all ears.’

  ‘A young man in Yekaterinburg did a deal to buy a considerable quantity of heroin resin, brought from Afghanistan via Dushanbe. He borrowed heavily to make the payment and must trade quickly so that the debt is met. To sell more quickly he believes it necessary to remove competitors in the city and the kiosks they use. The owner of the kiosks, though, is a man of substance and he has old arrangements in place in the city, and the arrangements are with people of influence. The young man sits in a chair through Monday night of this week and into Tuesday morning. His feet are in wet concrete, which by the morning has hardened. Yesterday he is taken, with the concrete that weights him, to a bridge over the Iset river. Many people are within sight of the vehicle that brings him to the middle of the bridge. He is taken
to the rail, lifted over and dropped. He did not treat the man who had the kiosks with sufficient respect, and now the fish eat him, but not his toes.’

  He was driving at the same speed and his voice had not risen, but there was a light laugh at the end of the story.

  ‘May I continue? Respect is always important. Respect should never be withheld. A man is given a contract by a siloviki group. He works in a finance division of a central ministry and wishes to denounce malpractice in Moscow. He does not make the accusation in the capital where prosecutors can examine the claims, but goes abroad and will be well rewarded by banks who allege they were defrauded. To go outside the state’s frontiers was an act of treason and the reward – usually – for treachery is apparent. At this moment a sniper watches that man and awaits an opportunity. Where he is, the traitor, it rains and he does not go to the garden. It will not rain for ever. The man believes he has found a place of safety, is confident of it, and so, when the rain stops, he will go out into a pretty garden for a cigarette and will be shot by a sniper. He did not give respect. And the individual who makes the arrangements for this to happen, and is discreet, is well rewarded.’

  The lorries in front of them had turned off. The road was open, empty.

  ‘The Albanians are serious people. I hear their new punishment for any occasion when sufficient respect is not shown them involves the stripping of a man, then the use of a mastic sealant and the gun that squirts it. The nozzle of the gun is put into all of the orifices, big and small. Water goes after the sealant and it will expand. The process is irreversible. I hear the Albanians say that the pain is terrible and death is slow. I would find such people if respect had not been shown.’

  ‘Would you now?’

  ‘If, Mr Exton, through your Irish dealings, you have brought a form of bacteria to Mr Simonov, I will be angry. You understand levels of anger? Acutely angry. That level of anger equals concrete on the feet, a sniper who demonstrates the length of the arm, or the swelling effect of a builder’s sealant. That is easy to understand, Mr Exton?’

  He did not back off. ‘For a chauffeur, you talk too much, Mr Denisov. Why should your boss demean himself by dealing with these Irish people for minimal sums? Because I asked him to. Good enough. I’m his friend and I earned that friendship when you and he were on your arses. You were pitiful. I helped, and I’m his friend. Cut the crap, because you’re yesterday.’

  Nothing more to be said.

  Sometimes there was a vehicle behind and sometimes there was only darkness. It was because of Gabrielle that he’d summoned the aggression to hack back at Denisov. He thought of her and a smile wreathed his face.

  It was poor procedure. She boiled with resentment at what was handed down to her. On the surface, Gaby Davies was another young woman – indeterminate age, nationality, profession – who loitered on a street. She wasn’t a whore because she glared at the men who slowed their cars on passing her and the others who hovered near her. It was more as if she was waiting for a date who had been delayed in traffic or at work – or stood her up.

  She should not have been there alone. There was no central control to move players on a board and shift new faces onto her pavement. Bentinick had flown out. Danny Curnow had disappeared, taking the Czech liaison man with him. She had eyeball on the pair.

  They were in a café. He didn’t know her and she had little understanding of him. That much was obvious to Gaby when she came past the window and stole a glance at them. They had a table in a corner and the girl had cleared her plate, meat and chips. He had eaten sparingly. She had ordered a glass of wine, while he had water. She followed with fruit and cheese, and he had only coffee. Easy enough to see that Malachy Riordan and Frankie McKinney shared nothing.

  They were the prime priority of the mission. She was alone. It made no sense to her. The chill settled on the evening. The girl talked. Malachy Riordan said barely a word.

  ‘Go on! So what’s it like?’

  Frankie thought he possessed none of the stereotypical qualities she would have looked for and had known. He did not display the brutal certainty of the man she had met at the party, been recruited by, and who was now in a Maghaberry cell. He had dynamism, but there was no sign of that in this man. He was top dog. She had been told that but couldn’t see it.

  ‘I mean, you’re close up, you’re not a wee kid. You’ve done it so many times – what’s going on in your head?’

  He seemed to bite his lower lip.

  ‘When the recoil comes through your wrists and into your shoulder, or you’re watching at a distance and see the explosives blow, is it fantastic?’

  He seemed to writhe. She had not met anyone like him, not from the country. Her parents had no friends in the villages and small towns. They knew people in Dublin, across the border and the south, and they lived in Belfast’s good-quality inner suburbs. She didn’t know Dungannon, had been to Armagh only once to visit, with a school party, St Patrick’s Cathedral. No reason to go near Coalisland, Cookstown or Carrickmore. She sensed his strength – his muscles seemed to ripple – and his complexion was weathered.

  ‘You have a hit. How do you celebrate?’

  After a pause, he said, ‘You go home. You get in the shower. The wife has an oil drum out the back and she’s lit a fire in it. You wear overalls, and they go in the drum. When you’re out the shower, and the clothes are well gone, she’ll make some tea. You don’t talk to her about it. Maybe the kid needs lifting back from school or taking to a friend. It’s what happens.’

  Incredible. A guy blown away, and it was about the wife going out the back to light a fire in an oil drum, then the school run.

  ‘Hasn’t the adrenalin kicked in, like speed?’

  ‘We don’t do drugs. We put dealers out of the community – we might shoot them in the knees first.’ Then a smile, wafer thin. ‘We sometimes take a cut from the dealers and they pay for protection from us.’

  She leaned forward, elbows on the table. ‘When you hit, do you hate them?’

  ‘It’s not personal. You think about the way out. That’s what matters to us.’

  Not winning a battle, then. Not watching the TV that night and seeing the panic spread. There might as well have been a debt-collection guy in Short Strand or up the Newtonards road repossessing the TV. ‘Nothing personal.’ And ripping off the dealers because that was as good a source of cash as any. She knew that: some of her funds in the bank would have been from coke, cannabis and amphetamines, but most was from cigarettes. She saw the strength of the hands, which fiddled with the spoon in the saucer.

  She gazed into the man’s eyes. ‘Do you think you’ll grow old, Malachy?’

  ‘My dad didn’t, nor his. I hope to.’

  ‘But you’ll not give up, like others did – like most of them did?’

  ‘You get the bill.’

  She wondered how it would be for a man or a woman who did not grow old. Was there ‘good’ and ‘bad’ death? She had her purse out and went to the counter. She didn’t know where he was staying in the city – she hadn’t been trusted with a hotel’s address. She paid. He waited for her at the door. She wondered then if it had been a daft thing she’d asked him, whether she herself would grow old – and how, for her, it would end. ‘Good’ or ‘bad’, quick or slow, heroic or humiliating.

  The cold hit her. Out on the pavement, he looked around him. There was a woman up the street saying gazing into a hardware shop’s window. It wasn’t lit, and who needed the price of a hammer at that time in the evening? Otherwise the street was deserted. He said where he would meet her in the morning, and was gone. A few steps then shadows closed on him. He was beyond her experience.

  Long after the light had gone, the priest was allowed into the field.

  He would have liked to bitch at the senior officer, but they had brought him beakers of hot tea and meat sandwiches, and he had been told it was about the ‘contamination of a crime scene’. The undertaker had waited as long as himself, and they had offered
him cigarettes. He had postponed a meeting with a couple from west of the mountain planning marriage – they’d be lucky to fit it in before the birth. He usually went to choir practice, but had made an excuse.

  The grass was sodden. A policeman held a wide umbrella to shelter him. It was going to be a poor autumn for the farmers: the arable ground was drenched, the grazing fields would be scarred if the cattle were left out any longer, and the sheep would have foot rot . . . He walked and a torch guided him. A generator chugged and the area beside the hedge, protected by makeshift tenting, was brilliantly illuminated. Men and women stood around, uniformed and in the kit for harsh weather. He sensed that few were of his faith and would harbour no great sense of tragedy – more likely ‘best place for the murderous little bastards’. At the site he was greeted with formal politeness and apologies that he had been kept waiting all day in the lane. He saw stern faces, the weapons held ready as if they thought themselves quagmired in hostile territory. Had the ‘peace process’ built bridges? He saw few signs of it.

  A flap was opened for him.

  The army had been and gone. The forensics team had left. He was last on a list of priority visitors, and the undertakers would be hard on his heels. The hedge had been damaged and the earth, where the explosion had taken off the top soil. Their heads were not covered. Neither face was marked but the expression on each showed the last moment of panic and terror. The eyes were huge and the mouths gaped. There was ripped clothing, scorched, and the holes in the bodies were deep and deadly. He saw the face of Pearse, a fine boy at heart, almost angelic when in school uniform and at communion – not often there, but always a polite boy. The other was twisted in his fall to the earth and the priest could see only half of his features. That was enough. He would have expected it to be Kevin, a pleasant enough young man, an attractive personality, with a future if the clasp of the Organisation had not grappled him. He knew their mothers and their family histories. He had administered their first communions, and those of their siblings. He would bury the boys. At the foot of the mountain, far below Shane Bearnagh’s Seat, was Castle Caulfield, a Protestant community. He had hardly ever been there, and long ago a bishop’s efforts to get contact between Catholics and Protestants had foundered. It had a fine church, not that he had ever entered it. Charles Wolfe had been a curate there, ministering to the new Ascendancy that had squatted on Catholic lands, and had written a poem in 1816 on the death of Sir John Moore at the fortress of Corunna. It often ran in the priest’s head at a time of death in violent conflict: