Death Order

by Jan Needle

  ‘Nothing. What do you think?’

  ‘Look, I’m in the Republic. I’m not meant to be. If the office ring, give them a message, OK?’

  To a sober man, the pauses seemed almost endless.

  ‘I might do. I might not.’

  ‘Fine. Just tell them I’m undercover, and I’m all right, OK? I’m in bandit country but I’ll get in contact when I can. Tell them I’m in the North, got that? I’m in the Republic really, but for them I’m in the North, OK? I’ll be a day or two, tell them.’

  Again the pause. The slow, uneven breathing. ‘Liz? Have you got that? Liz, I… how’s the boy?’

  An unpleasant, throaty noise came down the telephone. He could not imagine how she made it.

  ‘Fuck you,’ she said. She hung up on him.

  He put the receiver down himself, and picked it up, and dialled another number. It was late but not that late. Colin would be in, please God. He was unlikely to be in bed, unless there was a woman, which was also unlikely. He could be down the pub.

  Colin was a strange man, a strange man for a friend. His wife had been a nice woman, a friend of Jane’s, quiet, intelligent, attractive. And full of cancer, it had tragically turned out. But Colin was the sort of man he would have run a mile from in normal circumstances. He was plump and plummy, given to cavalry twill trousers and pale shirts with assertive checks, and he wore cheese-cutter caps and hacking jackets. Cars were his life and passion, although he was also pretty keen on house prices. He and Sue had lived in antiseptic circumstances in a small, expensive flat in Old Windsor, almost overlooking the River Thames. What blocked their view was a medieval church, a tourist masterpiece, so that was fine with Colin, because it put the prices up. When Susan died, the flat got even cleaner, almost sterile.

  Colin answered. The voice was just as plummy, with a faintly querulous edge. Bath, Bill guessed. Or sleep.

  ‘Hi. Sorry to interrupt you, Col. Been slaving over a hot customer, have you?’

  ‘Good Lord.’ Colin’s voice warmed instantly. ‘Bill. Only you would introduce yourself so rudely after all this time. I was in the bath.’

  ‘You’ll wash it off one day. You should be careful. Look, business. Jane Heywood. I need her number.’

  ‘I gave it to you. Yonks ago. Where are you? London? Can’t you say hello?’

  ‘Hallo,’ said Bill. ‘Yes, you gave it to me, you fat twat, but it didn’t work. I tried several times. I got a geriatrics’ home.’

  ‘Oh lord you didn’t, did you? Sorry, I’ve done that to other people. I can never remember the last digits. Oh gosh. Hang on, I’ll get my filo.’

  Bill, left holding the red receiver, felt a smile forming on his lips. He could imagine Colin, dripping pinkly, wrapped up in a fluffy towel doubtless, scurrying amid the polished, gleaming furniture, leaving a damp trail in the carpet pile. Ivory, it had been. Still would be. He was relieved. He had assumed the number had been wrong deliberately. Jane Heywood had a tight-knit band of friends to protect her. A mafia. He heard the receiver rattle off the table at the other end.

  ‘Bill? What have you got? I bet you’ve got six seven oh three. It’s four! I always misremember because I do business at the old folks’ home. I lay on cars on special days. You know.’

  I do, thought Bill. At no cost. Colin, for all he was a jerk, was a nice man. Sucker.

  ‘Well if you always forget, you idiot, why don’t you remember? I thought you were being cagey, like every bugger else. I wasted a small fortune trying to get through. I gave old ladies heart attacks!’

  ‘You could have rung back. You should have rung anyway. You’re meant to be a friend.’

  ‘Right. Apologies. That’s why we have friends, Col. So we can shit on them. Listen – have you got her address, by any chance? It would be better if I dropped in on her. Surprise her.’

  His mouth dried slightly as he said it. There was silence at the other end of the line, also. Which he took to be significant.

  ‘How’s Liz?’ said Colin. ‘How’s the kids?’

  ‘Kid,’ said Bill. ‘They’re fine. Look, you suspicious sod, this is business. If you don’t want to tell me, fine. But spare me the moral crusades, OK? I need to see her, to talk something through. Some history. I work in Ireland, remember? History’s important over there.’

  ‘Sorry, old man. The sisterhood gets very serious sometimes. Protective.’

  ‘I know. But I didn’t do anything, did I? Not then, not now, not ever. All injuries were mutual.’

  Not strictly true, but near enough. He didn’t want to think about it.

  ‘Bill. Where are you now? If you’ve got to go to Oxford to see her, you could call in. I’d love to see you, really, and it’s practically on the way. Where are you?’

  Wiley looked round the tatty, tiny living room, festooned with uncleared toys. He needed a base, he did not need the complications that even Chris might bring. The television set next door was hammering canned laughter through the party wall. Colin had cars…

  ‘I’m in Liverpool. A staging post. Trouble is, I’ve got to get a stage-coach. Train, at least. No wheels.’

  Colin drew in his breath. The satisfaction travelled audibly through the wire two hundred miles.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘surely that’s logical? What do you fancy? Mercedes? BMW? Rover?’

  He worked with a firm of car-hirers to the wealthy. He was a director. Sometimes the wealthy were too tired, or busy, to return the cars, sometimes they needed picking up. Colin quite often had a limousine or two parked on his patch of gravel, even a Bentley or Rolls Royce. The neighbours complained if it got epidemic, but in general terms it did give quite a good impression to casual visitors. And to prospective buyers when a flat fell empty.

  ‘Good God,’ said Bill. ‘What a daft idea! I can’t afford your daily rates, you nutcase.’

  ‘Don’t play hard to get, old boy. You don’t fool Uncle Colin. Usual terms. You buy me a pint.’

  ‘Skinflint bastard. You drive a harder bargain than Scrooge. Do I get a bed thrown in?’

  ‘Delighted. Hell, Bill, this is really nice. How soon can you make it?’

  Bill checked his watch. Pointlessly; there wouldn’t be a train tonight.

  ‘I’ll catch an early train, six-ish, seven-ish, there must be something. It’s under three hours from the Pool if I remember. Are you in all morning?’

  ‘Come to the office. You know it, the Green Park branch. I’ll be there. I’ll take the rest of the day off, we can come back here, pub lunch. I’ll sort you out a good’un, a BMW. Suit?’

  Bill heard the front door key in the lock. He heard Chris’s voice, talking to the children. Thank God for that, at least. To Colin he said: ‘Sounds fantastic. But I’ll be very busy, Col, I’ll need to get to Oxford first, I’d guess. We may have to postpone the lunch till evening. That OK?’

  ‘No probs. Easy. Is that company I hear? Children?’

  ‘Yeah, my rest-home. A little family place. Listen, I’ll see you in the morning. Take care, Col.’

  ‘And you, old man. Looking forward to it. Cheers.’

  Chris’s face was narrow and vivacious, with long dark hair framing it. She was smiling quizzically, her eyes alight with humour. One of the children, the girl, was blinking woodenly in the light, a half-bottle of Scotch clenched tightly in her hands. Chris took it, and propelled both of them back out into the passage, towards the stairs, mocking their sleepy curiosity.

  ‘Gerrout of it,’ she said. Her accent was so strong it reminded Bill, as it always did, of a TV sitcom voice. ‘He’ll still be ’ere in the morning, if you’re quick. Go ’ead up that bloody wooden ’ill!’

  They were still two-thirds asleep, they did not argue. Christine closed the door.

  ‘What are you gawping at?’ she asked Bill, as she pulled off her coat. She was thin and birdlike, dressed to kill, the demon barmaid.

  ‘I think I’ve got a headache, dear,’ he said.

  ‘You better not have, la’!’

>   Ah well…

  Nine

  For a man who claimed he was not promiscuous, Bill thought, he had been doing rather badly for a day or two. He caught a later train than he intended, not till after eight o’clock, and he had a hangover. Between them, he and Chris had finished the half-bottle, some of it before they went to bed but most of it in between times, and they had not slept much. Chris had been enthusiastic but Bill, dogged by whisky, weariness, anxiety, had not. He had played his part, though, browsed and wandered satisfactorily for both of them, and they had had a pleasant time. Chris’s expectations of men were not exactly high, and she liked the kindliness she found in Bill, his willingness to lie still and hold, to cuddle and converse. Bill, although from time to time almost overwhelmed by a desire to fall asleep, was content enough to listen to her talking of her friends and family and relationships, although he knew none of them. He went into the spare bedroom before the children woke, and got an hour undisturbed.

  The train was busy, so he did no more than doze as they rolled east along the river-line, then did the curve to head for London. His face was scratchy – Chris had had nothing in the house except a blunt razor for her legs – and his clothes were still the ones he had left Ireland in the day before. He had not dared to pack at home in case it led to comment and suspicion, nor had any of the clothes there been suitable. His wardrobe consisted of a suit or two, quite military and severe, a few summer casuals, and the ‘uniform’ of jeans, jerseys and bomber jackets that he wore for ‘work’. He was dressed like that now, although sans jersey, and his cream shirt was crumpled and stale. Christ, he thought, I’ve fucked two women in it for starters – wouldn’t you be jaded! If he was going to have a BMW, and live in Old Windsor, perhaps he’d go for cavalry twill, like Colin. He almost giggled, half asleep.

  When he did drop off, Bill Wiley had a dream that horrified him. He was on one of Ireland’s western strands, and a violent storm, a hurricane, was blowing from the west. Gigantic combers, Atlantic greybeards, were rolling in, ten feet high and stunningly impressive. As they began to break, the screaming wind took off their tops, long unbroken lines of them, and blew them towards the shore like smoke, white smoke, or hair. The noise, unbroken and terrific, stopped his ears, as the wild wind stopped his mouth. And then he saw his son.

  Bill, in the dream, began to run towards the combers, through wet sand that deepened as he stumbled forwards, buried him to the ankles and dragged him almost to a standstill. He opened his mouth to shout, but it was filled with salty, biting spray that blocked all voice. And Johnnie, whom he had seen atop a breaker struggling to swim, had disappeared. Time dissolved, Bill was in jeans and singlet, his anorak and boots had gone, he was soaked with sea and tears. He was up to his waist in water, the Atlantic warm, the waves coming to him like faithful dogs, lapping round him, licking him. Then undertow. He saw his son, underwater, rushing out to sea, his mouth open and his hands clutching, and he was gone.

  Bill woke up with a jump, and a noise that frightened the girl opposite him at the plastic table. She became quite wild-eyed as he apologized, clearly terrified that talking was a prelude to far worse. Bill stopped, knowing much of terror, and closed his eyes to reassure her, pretended to seek sleep. He checked, surreptitiously, to make sure his Browning was still concealed beneath the bomber jacket. Holy shit.

  Through the flat Midlands, he tried for rationality, an assessment of the situation, but that was plain impossible. His wife was cracking up and hated him, his son was eleven and a day and could detect the strain. Did he hate his wife? He did not know. To her the problem was the job, the tension and the boredom, and the endless lack of him, the disappearances, the eighteen-hour days, the exhaustion and bad temper. His frustration, rationally, had always been her refusal to accept necessity, she had known the game when she had married him, he was wedded to the job. Not just a job, either, it was never just a job. In the old days, when the rows had been sufficiently new to embrace shreds of rationality, he had thrown words like patriotism at her, and service, and saving her and people like her from terror, saving democracy. Last week she had told him that she’d vote Sinn Fein next time. And here he was on the train from Liverpool to London, running from the job. Rationality? That was plain impossible.

  When Wiley opened his eyes once more, the girl had seized her chance and sneaked away. He took the opportunity of a passing train to look at himself in the window – now a mirror for short, uneven seconds – and was actually startled. His face was sallow, his chin black with stubble, his eyes raw and cavernous. He straightened his shoulders, took the curve from out his spine, stretched his legs. He was a mess, entirely.

  Jane Heywood. What would she look like nowadays? What would she say when she saw him? Just precisely what did he expect, or hope, to get from her? Was it he, perhaps, that was cracking up, not Liz? Perhaps she was married, although Colin would have mentioned that, he guessed. Perhaps she would not remember him.

  Although he was not a promiscuous man – Bill smiled as the thought formed itself again – he had had an affair with Jane Heywood, a real affair. It had started as an accident, a sort of one-night stand, which had given it its gloss of haphazardness, its respectability. He had not entered into it, or into her, with thoughts of damaging his wife, or betraying her. It was one of those things that happens, once in a way, to certain types of male and female.

  It had been at a conference, in a big hotel in Birmingham, the sort that had been built for such affairs, apparently. It had been an odd conference, more a historical gathering, held at the whim of an oil prince with a degree (from Cambridge) in enthusiasm, and a lot more cash than sense. He also had more enemies than oil wells, but was a valuable link in the Foreign Office chain of corrupt but friendly potentates they could more or less rely on when slush and contracts were in the question. Bill Wiley – on loan to the Office – had been there in a business suit as part of the British side in the security arrangements. One of their main jobs, and worries, being to keep the prince’s own team from overstepping the bounds of diplomatic possibility, and strong-arming the police and public (to forget it) when they did.

  Jane Heywood had been a speaker and a guest. She was a historian and the niece of quite a famous one, an expert on the politics of Europe – who had taught in the Far and Middle East and had at one time caught the eye of the oil prince. She was indeed eye-catching. She wore a navy suit, square-shouldered but not padded, with a skirt that ended just below the knee, revealing calves that made Bill ache, and small feet in blue kid mid-height shoes. Her face was open, make-up free and brown, and her shoulder-length hair was chestnut, gleaming as if polished. One of the Eastern security men, quite clearly, had marked her for his own and was taking No for Yes interminably. Bill had intervened politely, turned his back on Jane and showed the man their universal identity, and moved them far enough away to warn him, in low but brutal syllables, that the Prince was in the hunt and what, therefore, might happen to him. Affecting insouciance, and probably assuming she was Bill’s, he had backed down and left.

  They had gone to bed together, much to Bill’s astonishment and delight, later the same evening. She had not been flustered by the incident with the strong-arm man, nor by Bill’s intervention. She was flattered and amused, she said, but laughed out loud when he suggested she might have been in actual danger. He laughed as well, at his own pretensions and the ease with which her clear grey eyes had seen straight through them. Jane later told him that she had decided then to sleep with him, if he expressed an interest.

  Why? Bill, a military man in all but rank at that time, had been slightly scandalized. Here was an educated woman, cool, calm and collected, behaving in a way he had been led to believe that her type did not, could not, should not. He was talking respectability. In the language of the barrack room, perhaps even the officers’ mess, she was high-class crumpet. You looked and lusted, then maybe you wanked. After they had made love a few times, when it had become clear that it was no one-night stand, he
had dared to tell her this, and Jane had laughed at him again. She laughed a lot, and found him funny when he least expected it. But she did not explain herself.

  Jane lived in London then, because she was working at London University, near the Museum. Bill lived in Potters Bar, near Liz’s parents, but as ever spent much time away from home, so was not missed much more than usual when he stayed the night in town. Johnnie had been eight, his life uncomplicated by fears that disappearances could lead to anything more permanent. Dad went away, but Dad came back again. No problem. Things were different now. The fear of dematerialization was mutual. Its reality as a touchstone of their lives affected both of them.

  They screwed, and talked, and drank together, Bill and Jane, and all the time, he thought that it was wonderful. Her house was in a quiet street on the edge of Brixton, near the prison, and he got there twice a week for a short while, sometimes letting himself in at dead of night with the key she’d given him, and undressing on the landing outside her bedroom, and slipping into bed beside her, naked, the pair of them giggling in the dark, miscreants in a fantastic dormitory. He quickly got out from under the first big lie – that he was single – because he realised she would find out soon and anyway he hated to deceive her, and she had thanked him for having the guts to tell her. The second lie – that he was a businessman, at the hotel coincidentally – she had not believed from the word go. Her uncle had been an agent in the war, she told him, and she ‘knew the signs’. Bill had been curious about the uncle, but relentlessly circumspect about his own job, and they had agreed a truce. He was in security, that was the ‘business’, but she would not pursue it. Of Uncle Edward, though, they talked a lot. It was why he had to see her now.

  Twelve weeks? Thirteen weeks? He could not remember in precise terms any more. He had found it wonderful, and easy, and relief, and Jane had looked into the future and seen the truth. They had parted without real bitterness, although his private anger had shocked him when it dawned on him at last that she meant every farewell word and that she’d keep to it with grim determination. It was her fate, she had decided. Attractive, intelligent house-trained, and doomed to end up in affairs that could not last. It was her fate, but she would buck it and go on bucking it; she would not go under. She had made Bill promise not to contact her again, and he had kept the promise, for an eternity. Once, eighteen months ago, he had rung and a man had answered and he had put the phone down. Then later, hearing she had moved, he had got the number from Colin Smart and tried again, not even certain why, or what he’d say if she picked up the receiver. But an old dear did, who said that Jane was out, which whetted his curiosity and his appetite to know her circumstances. It was only after he had spoken to a succession of old dears, male and female, that he got one who was sufficiently unbatty to tell him his mistake. It was a twilight home; pre-cemetery. He had not rechecked with Colin. Let fate be the decider…