Klein continued walking towards the green. It was true that Sutton was an excellent scientist and that he had been mainly responsible for the development of Folitac, but there was an old-new reality. The man was an alcoholic. ‘You know about his problem, Jonathan,’ the American said quietly.
‘I thought he was on the wagon.’
Klein sighed. ‘He was paralytic every day last week, and I don’t think I can carry him anymore.’
Tring could see that the situation was hurting his friend, who he knew always believed in holding the moral high ground. ‘What about Michael Bannister?’ the professor inquired, referring to Sutton’s deputy.
‘He’s been pushing me for Derek’s job, but I don’t think he’s up to it. I’m not sure of his true commitment.’
‘What does Kinloss think about the situation?’ Tring asked, aware that Klein’s partner was more concerned with profit than personalities.
‘He says Sutton is a liability and has to go, although he agrees with me about Bannister. Basically, we both want you.’
Tring remained silent until they neared the hole. He took out his putter and crouched to check the run of the green. It was a puttable eight-foot shot. ‘I’m giving Parados a try,’ he said, without looking up. ‘If things don’t match up to my expectations, I promise I’ll take up your offer.’
‘I can’t ask for more than that,’ said Klein resignedly. The American’s attention was suddenly attracted by three disparate figures making their way to an adjacent green. One he recognised instantly as an old playing partner who was both a member of his local synagogue and a captain of British industry. The other two looked familiar. ‘Hey, Jonathan, isn’t that your boss over there?’
Tring narrowed his eyes against the sun. There was no doubting the squat figure was none other than Jack Proctor.
‘So it is,’ he said quietly, as the three men moved away without looking his way. The professor also recognised one of Proctor’s playing partners. It was none other than Stephen Sellars, the Secretary of State for Health.
The Falls Road area of Belfast was technically in the same nation as the green swathe of middle class affluence that was Abridge, but there the similarity ended. While Professor Jonathan Tring was hitting a nine-iron towards the eighteenth green, the man who intended to become his nemesis sat stern-faced in a small grimy back-to-back belonging to one of his former cohorts. Kelly now faced his moment of truth.
‘That’s a lot your asking of us, Kieran,’ said the owner of the house, a thin-faced wiry man approaching middle age. Sean Callaghan looked into the younger man’s deep blue eyes. He knew nothing would sway Kelly from his course. Nothing ever did.
‘Sean, you know that if you turn me down, I’ll not resent you for it. I’d never expect either of you to do anything against your will.’
Callaghan looked away and towards the third man in the room. Gerry O’Connor had put on a little weight since he’d seen him last. Family life seemed to be agreeing with him. ‘What do you think, Gerry?’ he asked.
‘I think I might have a lot of explaining to do to my wife and kids,’ replied O’Connor, a stocky man in his mid-thirties, who would look at home propping up a front row. In fact, rugby was just about as violent as it had got for him over the last few years.
‘You’d just be away for a couple of days,’ Kelly rejoined. ‘You know me. Everything will be planned to the last detail. You’ll be in and out and back home before the shit hits the fan. Nobody will ever be able to connect you with me.’
It was true, thought O’Connor. When Kelly had invited them to join his maverick cell during The Troubles, he’d sworn that he would never divulge their identities, even under torture, whether from his own side or from British Army Intelligence. The man was extraordinary, a chameleon who practised his own rules, some of which were in direct contradiction to the terrorist handbook. They had never been caught. In five years, they had succeeded in evading their pursuers, friend and foe alike. In fact, the authorities didn’t even have a clue who they were. Kelly had had the knack of always staying one step ahead.
‘’Tis true that what they did to Teresa was criminal, Kieran,’ O’Connor said compassionately, aware that he, too, would be consumed by revenge had his wife been maimed in such a way. ‘But kidnap a British minister?’ He whistled through his teeth. ‘That’s big league.’
‘All I’m asking is that you help me capture these guys,’ said Kelly. ‘As I said, your job’ll then be done. Whatever happens to them after that will be my responsibility and mine alone.’
‘When do you expect you’ll be needing our help, Kieran?’ said Callaghan, nervously twiddling one of his long sideburns.
‘I reckon it’ll take me between three and six months to organise everything, the safe house and all. I still have to work, so I’ll be doing everything in my spare time. Sean, you’d be the driver.’
Callaghan laughed. ‘Yeah, I’m getting too old to be a heavy.’
‘I suppose that’s where I come in,’ said O’Connor.
‘If things go to plan, they’ll be little need for the rough stuff,’ Kelly said.
‘Pity,’ said O’Connor, smiling through teeth that were worse the wear for years of contact sport, ‘these guys sound as if they need a bit of re-shaping.’
There was a pregnant silence while Callaghan poured himself and the others a further pint of Guinness. The wiry fellow then raised his glass. ‘You can count on me, Kieran,’ he said. ‘Life was becoming too boring, anyway.’
‘Thanks, Sean, I appreciate it.’
Both men then looked towards the third in the room.
Gerry O’Connor first scratched his cauliflower right ear and then his balding pate. After what seemed an agonised few seconds of contemplation, he, too, raised his glass. ‘To the loving memory of Teresa Kelly,’ he said quietly. ‘May she rest in peace, and may her tormentors go to hell.’
Kieran Kelly was both relieved and apprehensive as he strode the few blocks between Callaghan’s place, small and soulless, and the passion of a home that hummed with the happy voices of children. His children. His two comrades had done him proud. Their friendship had still meant something, even though the cause for which they had fought no longer counted for much. And yet he was only too aware that he bore a heavy responsibility. If he thought for one moment that their lives were in jeopardy or that their identities would be revealed, he would scrap his mission without a moment’s hesitation.
‘Da’! Da’!’
The excited squealing of his youngest daughter pierced his musings, returning him to the warmth of the present rather than the cold uncertainty of the future. He scooped her into his arms and revelled in the clammy wetness of her kisses. A particularly cold gust of wind almost blew them over.
‘Are you sure you’re dressed warm enough, my pretty one?’ He fussed and pulled her bobble cap further over her ears. A single lock of red hair poked from beneath the rim. A few more strides and he was already over the mantle and into his sister-in-law’s home.
‘Hi, Mary,’ he called out. ‘It’s me, Kieran.’
Mary Quinn stepped into the hall from the kitchen. By her side and holding her hand was Sian Kelly, reticent and unsure.
The Irishman put down his youngest daughter gently and stood silent for a few seconds. Mary was so like his beloved Teresa it almost took his breath away. He moved the few steps between them and kissed his sister-in-law warmly. He then knelt beside Sian. Taking her hand in his, he brought it to his cheek and then to his lips. He knew she was still hurting and that his prolonged absences had done nothing to help her overcome the trauma of losing her mother.
‘Take me to Patrick, my darling,’ he said kindly. Silently, she led him to the baby’s crib.
Kelly picked up his son and clasped him to his breast. He glanced at his watch and damned the fact that he could spend only a few hours with them all.
The following morning, Jonathan Tring arose earlier than usual. His sleep had been fitful, punctured as i
t was by the implications of Klein’s offer and the spectre of an admonishing Proctor. The prevailing image, however, had been that of Mrs Proctor. The perfectly sculptured face and body had seemed to both summon and dismiss him.
Women had always been a dominant feature of the professor’s life, yet in an ethereal way. It might be said that he held a certain ambiguity towards them, loving them for their bodies and yet finding their minds unfathomable. His mother had been the resolute wife of a City stockbroker, steadfastly ignoring his father’s philandering in favour of charity work for the local townswomen’s guild in their village just outside Canterbury. Tea and crumpets might have seemed a poor substitute for love, but Margaret Tring was never one to show how much it hurt. In fact, she rarely showed much emotion at all, even to her own children. Jonathan and his twin brother Robert had been packed off to a boarding school in Broadstairs at the tender age of eleven, thus distancing them even further from a woman who remained somewhat of an enigma. The professor’s feelings towards his mother could best be described as vague, and it concerned him that he had felt strangely unmoved by her death. It was said that stress was a major cause of cancer, and he believed a whole life spent hiding emotion was responsible for her premature end at sixty. His dissolute father had expired a year later, leaving the Tring twins an inheritance decimated by gambling debts. That was five years ago. Jonathan was now a respected scientist, and Robert, who was also still single, was an army major based in the Falklands. He had recently written of his frustration at having mainly sheep for company.
Tring chuckled as he recalled his brother’s plaint about the lack of serviceable females on the islands. ‘It’s so bad, my boys use sheep in an emergency. I caught some of them racing towards the pen the other day. Well, nobody wanted to get the ugly one, did they?’
The professor suddenly felt much better. Within a few minutes he had showered, shaved and dressed, and was already heading towards Harlow from his bachelor pad in Loughton. The journey took about twenty minutes, during which time he attempted, somewhat unsuccessfully, to wipe all thoughts of Sharon Proctor from his mind.
‘Where’s Tring?’ Jack Proctor growled, his corpulent figure blocking the doorway of the lab. He was doing his morning rounds to make sure noses were hard against the grindstone.
‘I think he’s with Mrs Proctor, JP,’ Harold Spencer replied, while gingerly transferring a yellowish liquid from one test tube to another. ‘She buzzed him a few minutes ago.’
In a single movement, almost graceful but not quite, the chairman turned on his heels and moved with unusual alacrity towards the nearby lift that would take him up two floors. Within less than a minute he had reached his office, the hub of his dominion and the repository of various items of state-of-the-art surveillance. With key already in hand, Proctor sank into his leather chair and stooped to unlock the centre drawer of his desk. Inside was a voice recorder that had already been activated. He fixed an earphone securely into his right ear, folded his arms and then sat back staring at the wall-clock directly opposite. His early morning rounds could wait, for when one commanded an empire, one commanded time.
‘…So how are you settling in, Jonathan?’ the silky drawl of Sharon Proctor inquired of the man she had summoned. Her hungry smile, displayed two rows of perfectly formed teeth. The lips, full and sensuous, bore a hint of cinnamon that complemented the classic lines of her cream Armani suit. Tall and lean, she carried herself with a confidence found only in women well able to defend themselves.
Tring shrugged. ‘Fine,’ he said, and sat a little less stiffly. He was still blushing from the sudden realisation that he was staring at her.
Everything about Sharon Proctor’s face was perfectly proportioned. The hair, which ended in a graceful arc either side of a delicately pointed chin, was cut to accentuate the porcelain it circumscribed. The cheekbones, which peeked tantalisingly from within her satin tresses, were high and proud. But it was the grand steel-blue ellipses that held him in thrall. They lay astride a finely contoured nose and shimmered like a peacock’s tail.
‘I believe you know the US well,’ she ventured. The soft drawl was pleasant to the ear, like a Schubert serenade.
‘Yes, I’ve been several times, but never to Savannah. I believe that’s where you hail from.’
‘Yeah, good ol’ Savannah, Georgia. Time warp town. Sittin’ on the porch, sippin’ mint julep and listenin’ to the Mockingbird.’
‘Do you miss it?’
The quintessential Sharon Proctor smile revealed a mixture of disdain and cynicism. ‘Have you ever picked cotton, Jonathan?’
‘Can’t say that I have.’
‘People have such a romanticised view. You know, the negra pickin’ and singin’ in the fields. But let me tell you that plenty poor white folk also worked their butts off. And when it’s cotton pickin’ time in the fields around Savannah, it’s hotter than a sinner in hell. And if the sticky heat don’t get you, the damn gnats will. And when you pull that cotton boll from its pod, your fingers become so damn sore they bleed. I don’t know what was redder, the blood or the earth. The fields are all red clay in Georgia. It gets everywhere, and that’s why we’re called Red Necks, whatever they say about it being the sun on our necks and all.’
Tring could see that she was hurting. He watched her eyes mist over as she delved deeper into reminiscences of what he realised must have been a traumatic childhood.
‘In the old days,’ she went on, ‘the women and us children from Waynesboro used to carry large sacks made out of burlap. We’d sling it round our necks and fill it with cotton. Soon it would drag along the ground like a dead weight. Mom always wanted me near her and was forever warning me not to get lost among those high sticky plants. She feared someone would grab me. I did it anyway, and I remember my heart a-poundin’ each time. One time I ran upon some bloody clothing in an abandoned hut. I reckoned a man had killed someone in that hut and I was drawn to it like a magnet. Shortly after, I was playing near the hut and I ran right over a man who was sleepin’ in the field. Didn’t see him because of the tall plants. I started screaming and ran off like a headless chicken. I don’t know who was more frightened, that poor man or me. I was only ten years old.’
Tring sat transfixed by the lilt of her voice and the images it conjured. She was an extraordinary woman.
For a moment Sharon Proctor seemed lost in the mists of time, then, ‘We had nine miles of cotton between my back yard and the road, so I never gave it a second thought to work out in the yard when the sun came up. Around my fourteenth birthday, I was out in my see-through nightgown in the early dawn light when a crop duster spotted me and gave quite an air show. I dared not stand up or I would have been the one giving the show. Just when I thought it was safe to make a dash for the veranda, he fell outta the sky. He was so close to the ground, I could see him smile as he tipped his cowboy hat to me as he flew by. He did the same thing for the next three years until I left home. You see, I might have been a crop duster’s girl.’
‘But you were destined for much better.’
‘Yes,’ she said wistfully. ‘You know, I used to catch lightning bugs at night – I think you call them fireflies here. I’d put them in a bottle by my bed. I used to sing to them as soon as the first star came out. We had a song we used to sing down south, “star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish tonight.”’
‘And did your wish come true?’
‘Look around you,’ she replied with an expansive gesture. ‘I guess it did. Not bad for a poor lil’ girl from Georgia who used to dress up mops because her Mom couldn’t afford to buy her a baby doll. Every time she wanted to clean up, she had to remove those clothes.’ She sighed heavily as if the memory weighed on her like an anvil, and then smiled it away with a grin that was half hurt and half pride. ‘But let’s not dwell on the past, Jonathan. I’m a woman who lives for now and plans for the future. I think I happen to be in the most exciting job in the world. The
re are millions of people out there who rely on us to help cure their ills and ease their pain.’
‘That’s a pretty big responsibility.’
‘Of course it is, and that’s why Parados prides itself on the quality of its staff.’
Tring accepted her implied compliment diffidently. He felt that Sharon Proctor’s expectations might outweigh his ability to fulfil them, especially as far as a new method of contraception was concerned. ‘It’s a tall order I’ve been set, Mrs Proctor.’
‘Call me Sharon,’ she said. ‘Please.’
‘Er, Sharon,’ he said awkwardly. Somehow it didn’t feel right. He had always found it difficult to call any boss’s wife by her Christian name. It had been easier to resist with the wives of his previous employers. They had all been on the wrong side of fifty and had the sort of faces that would make a lemon weep. Anyway, he felt he had to know her a little better before he would feel comfortable with first name terms, at least in their professional capacity. He was also troubled by a general uneasiness and a marked stirring in the area of his groin.
‘Jack and I have the fullest confidence in you, Jonathan,’ she went on. ‘We must innovate or perish, and neither Jack nor I is the suicidal type.’
Tring knew then that, despite the confidence she displayed, Sharon Proctor was a worried woman. Despite his fire-fighting job on Triamerol, it might only be a matter of time before the plug was pulled by the Department of Health. The contraceptive pill, the mainstay of the company, was also getting a bad Press. It gave the scientist scant solace that the Proctors looked upon him as their Great White Hope. ‘I can only do my best,’ he sighed.
‘We realise that,’ Sharon Proctor said supportively. ‘And you can be sure that Jack and I will back you to the hilt. We have big plans for the future, and an innovative male contraceptive will provide the blueprint.’
Cry of the Needle Page 8
