by Bill Ward
He glanced again at the wounded man who was clutching at his stomach and moaning. Tom had no intention of going any nearer to check on his welfare. Frankly he hoped he was in a lot of pain. He took a few steps back and watched both of them, fully prepared to use the gun he was holding if necessary.
The woman came up to his side. He put his arm around her shoulder, in theory to comfort her but needing the support just as much himself. He looked closely at her for the first time. She was wearing a long purple coat that shouted out quality and designer. Her head was wrapped in a furry hat of the type he associated with Russians in cold winters. Or at least they wore them in Doctor Zhivago. The hat covered her forehead and framed her face. She had high cheekbones that gave her a slightly oriental look or was it Slavonic. Striking green eyes shone out from perfect skin. Dark brown hair fell to her shoulders.
His first thought was that not only was she beautiful but also slightly familiar. Then the evening produced yet another seismic shock, when he recognized who he was comforting. There was hardly a person on the planet that wouldn’t recognize Melanie Adams. Her face regularly adorned the front covers of glossy magazines and her latest film, where she once again played the sexy love interest, was still breaking box office records. He gave a weak smile of support and wondered what the hell had happened to his quiet night out, as a police car screeched to a halt nearby. Two uniformed officers jumped from the car pointing guns at him and shouting instructions.
“Drop the weapon and get down on the ground,” the first policeman commanded.
Tom glanced back at the killers to see which of them still had a gun.
“Put the weapon down and get on the ground,” the policeman repeated.
This time Tom realised the instructions were being shouted at him. He remembered the gun in his hand and suddenly felt very uncomfortable. Christ the bloody fools think I’m dangerous. He extended his arm sideways and gently placed the gun on the ground.
“Move away Miss,” the second policeman barked.
Tom first knelt and then prostrated himself on the cold hard ground. He’d seen it done in films but never thought he’d be doing it himself.
“Don’t be so stupid,” Melanie screamed at the policemen. “He saved my life. It’s them you need to arrest.” She pointed at the two injured men.
The policemen moved forward. The first one carefully picked up the gun. The second was warily inspecting the bodies that now littered the ground.
“It was me who called you,” Tom explained, turning his head sideways to meet the gaze of the policeman. He could hear the second policeman in the background on his radio asking for assistance and ambulances.
Melanie Adams was obviously not easily intimidated. “Do you recognize me?” she asked the policeman, moving close enough to elicit a positive nod of the head. “I’m telling you that these two men attacked us. They shot my bodyguard and my assistant.” She pointed out the guilty. “And this man saved my life. Now please let him get off the ground.” Her tone suggested it wasn’t a request she expected to be denied.
“OK Sir, you can get up,” the policeman agreed somewhat grudgingly.
Tom gratefully got to his feet. Further sirens could be heard approaching. He turned to Melanie and said simply, “Thanks.” He could see the last of her strength was draining from her and tears were forming at the corners of her eyes.
“Carol wasn’t just my assistant, she was a good friend,” she explained. Then as if realising the enormity of what had transpired, she started to shake and uncontrollably sob.
CHAPTER TWO
In the smoke filled back room of an old terraced house near the centre of Belfast, four men were sat round the table. A threadbare carpet covered the floor and there were no material signs of the power the four men could wield throughout Belfast and the North. They constituted the Brigade Staff of the Provisional Irish Republican Army or IRA as they are more often simply called. It was early Sunday morning and no one had had the time or inclination for breakfast. Their appetites had been ruined by the previous night’s news.
“Who the fuck’s responsible for this?” the Chief demanded, bringing his fist down hard on the large wooden kitchen table, causing coffee cups to jump from their saucers and spill their contents over the side.
It was his house where they were meeting. He wasn’t a big man physically, of only average height and with a wiry frame but he was known to be a tough bastard. It was a reputation he had been happy to cultivate over the last twenty five years. It had been a long time since anyone challenged his authority.
In the eighties and nineties there had been rivals but through a mixture of good luck and some good judgment, he had survived when many others ended up dead or in jail and almost by default he had been left in unchallenged command. Some said he had the luck of the Leprechaun and lived a charmed life. Others less politely just referred to him as a lucky bastard but not within earshot.
For sure there had been some near misses, such as in 1987 when he was due to sail from Libya on the MV Eksund carrying a huge supply of arms from Colonel Gaddafi back to Ireland. At the last minute he had stayed behind for further negotiations and he had indeed been lucky, as the Eksund was intercepted by the French Navy while in the Bay of Biscay. There had been four shipments before the Eksund, which weren’t intercepted, so he would have considered himself bloody unlucky if he had been on the ship. Once he had the power, he had no intention of letting it go and had always been ruthless in protecting his position. Now fifty five years of age, he gave no hint of relaxing his iron fist rule.
He hadn’t yet shaved this morning and a dark stubble covered his face. His equally dark hair was uncombed and scruffy. His clothes were thrown on in haphazard fashion, the green shirt not sitting comfortably on top of the blue jeans. He had large ears that would be the first feature picked up by a caricature artist and his face was lined with deep crevices. He had dark piercing eyes that conveyed menace as he stared in turn at each man, challenging them until they averted his gaze.
“This wasn’t fucking sanctioned,” the Chief continued angrily. He took a long drag on his cigarette to calm himself. He knew he smoked too much. Too often, like this morning, he relied on nicotine for sustenance.
“You know Maguire’s always been a head case,” one of the others volunteered. He was the tallest man sat at the table. “He always had too much of a taste for blood. And the lad with him was Pat Murphy’s son.”
“You’re responsible for operations,” the Chief snarled. “Did you know what they were fucking planning?”
“Course not,” he responded quickly, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut in the first place. “After Maguire’s last bank job went wrong we told him to get over there and lie low for a bit.”
“Well he made a grand job of that,” the Chief replied sarcastically. “Killed two people and tried to kidnap Melanie fucking Adams no less. Might as well have been the Queen. Now he’s frigging dead and the Brits will think we fucking planned this! We need damage limitation and we need it fucking quick or else.”
One of the men who had so far remained silent spoke. He was the only one dressed smartly, wearing a dark suit as he would be going straight to Mass once the meeting was finished. “What do we do about the Murphy boy? He had a nasty concussion but he knows enough to drop us right in the shit. If he starts talking the bloody Unionists will have a field day. It would give them the perfect excuse to break the agreement.”
“He wouldn’t talk,” the Head of Operations said with conviction.
“We don’t fucking know that,” the Chief interjected. “He knows he’s a dead man if he ever came back here so he’ll trade.”
There was silence around the table for a few seconds while each contemplated what the Chief had said. It was broken only by the sound of a baby crying in the next room.
“We need to take young Murphy out and quick,” the Chief instructed.
“They’ll have him stashed away safe. We’ll never get near him,” the
final man in the room remarked. He wore horn rimmed glasses with large lenses and thick, heavy frames. He was a little younger than the others.
“You’re job’s intelligence,” the Chief came back quickly. “Someone must know something. Squeeze every frigging contact we have.” Then he shouted at the top of his voice, “Will you shut the young one up. I’m trying to have a fucking meeting in here.”
There was no immediate end to the baby’s crying but the sound receded and then the front door could be heard closing with a loud bang, after which there was silence in the house.
The man responsible for intelligence broke the silence. “They may well have jumped ship to the Real boys. They’ve been working hard recently trying to convince a few of the younger or wilder sorts to join them.”
“We are the fucking real boys,” the Chief shot back with venom. “That vermin calling themselves the Real IRA is just taking the piss. And even they aren’t stupid enough to try and kidnap Melanie Adams. It makes no fucking sense.”
There was again silence broken only by the Chief noisily slurping on his coffee. “Get Connor on the case,” he continued. “Do whatever it takes to shut Murphy up and get ready for the shit to hit the fan when the press gets their hands on this. We need to distance ourselves from Maguire. And remind our boys that if we hear of anyone talking to the competition, they’ll be spending the rest of their lives in a wheelchair and taking their meals in liquid form through a straw.”
It was just after four in the morning before Tom made it home. By no means a castle, but it felt reassuring to be back and shut the front door on the rest of the world. A world that now seemed a lot more dangerous than it had when he last left the house. He had lived in the same three bedroom detached house close to the racecourse, looking down over the town of Brighton, for twelve years. The location next to the racecourse had nothing to do with his gambling way of life. It was simply a more affordable area to live but it did seem appropriate and it was fun in summer to be able to attend an evening meeting and stagger home after a few too many beers. The outside of the house was nondescript but over the years, and with the help of poker tournament winnings, he had radically changed the interior. He had found a Polish builder who worked hard for a very fair hourly rate and used him to knock down walls, to extend the size of the kitchen and the living room. The result was a modern bright home that often surprised visitors with its spaciousness and style.
Tom loved living in Brighton. He thought of it as a mini London on sea but unlike the Capital everything is squeezed into a small area. He enjoyed the vibrancy and creativity that was evident all through the year. There was never a shortage of things to do. He particularly liked the large choice of live music venues and the comedy clubs. And of course he was a regular at the Casinos.
In the summer there would be a variety of Festivals that fought for his attention. What he liked best though was the cosmopolitan nature of Brighton. It is the Gay capital of the UK and a huge tourist destination, whether for hen and stag parties at the weekend or for family holidays in the summer. Diversity is welcome and expected by the inhabitants. He doubted he would ever live anywhere else.
Earlier, he’d sat in the back of a police car while ambulances and further police cars arrived, all with flashing lights and sirens blaring. Soon the scene was flooded with a mixture of uniformed and plain clothes officers. He could see Melanie Adams sat in the back of a different car. He watched them all going about their business, then after a while one of the senior uniformed officers approached and spoke to him through the open car door. When the officer said would he mind going back to the police station, to help further with their enquiries and make a statement, he wasn’t entirely sure if he had the option of refusing but in any event would have chosen to go and get it out the way.
He’d already refused the offer to go to hospital, pointing out that there would be no permanent damage, just severe bruising to his forehead and knee. He’d dismissed the idea he might have concussion and convinced them he would be perfectly capable of providing a lucid description of the night’s events, especially while everything was fresh in his mind.
Once at the police station, he was sat at a metal table in a sparse room and kept waiting twenty minutes, although in the meantime he was offered and accepted a hot mug of tea, which was delivered by a perfectly friendly female officer in uniform. Finally, two interviewing male officers in plain clothes patiently went over virtually Tom’s complete life history, before honing in on the evening’s events. They questioned his every detail and then cleverly would ask the same questions in a different way a short time later to check his answers. He recognized what they were doing and trying to spot their traps kept him alert and helped fight the monotony of the protracted questioning.
Tom recognized the double questioning was not specifically an indication they didn’t believe him but a professional need to be one hundred per cent accurate. The media were all over this case and there would be no career for anyone who made even the smallest error.
Tom had to laugh out loud when one of the officers asked how well he knew Melanie Adams! Not as well as he would like to he was thinking but such flippancy seemed out of place. The way it had been asked, there was the hint of an implication something was amiss about the night’s events and maybe he and Miss Adams had a relationship. Realising laughing wasn’t really an appropriate response to the questions, he gathered his composure and with a straight face simply stated he knew her as well as anyone else who had seen her films but no more than that.
When the officers were finally satisfied and brought the interview to an end, the senior one shook his hand and praised his actions. They’d done the official bit. That wouldn’t be on the record but it meant a lot to Tom. Then he was brought more tea while his words were transcribed into a statement for his signature. When it came time to leave he was surprised and pleased when his mobile phone was returned. While sat in the police car, he had remembered that he had left it on the ground and asked the officer to find it but wasn’t sure he would do so. As he tucked it in his jacket pocket, he reminded himself not for the first time, he needed to keep a copy somewhere of the two hundred numbers in his phone.
On the journey home he realised just how much his knee hurt and was thankful he drove an automatic. The thought occurred to him that it was fortunate for Melanie Adams that he had decided to meet his accountant and drive to London. On balance he decided he also was pleased he’d driven. Okay, so he’d been in the wars and scared to death but the outcome had been positive enough to leave him with quite a feeling of pride.
There was also the thought he may have used up all his luck for the foreseeable future and perhaps poker should be avoided for a time. The wind buffeted against the car and he focused on driving extra carefully. He had no intention after what he’d survived of finishing the night as a traffic casualty.
The house was freezing cold as he never wasted money on heating the place when he wasn’t actually there. Despite the late hour, on the way to the kitchen he turned the central heating up to maximum. Resting on top of the fridge he found the bottle of Metaxa, the neighbours had brought him back the previous summer, from their Greek holiday. It wasn’t his favourite drink by a long way, which explained why it was still half full after so many months but the large measure he poured was downed in one and sent a fiery warmth flooding through his body. He poured a second drink and headed straight for his bed with the remainder of the bottle.
It wasn’t surprising he slept like a baby and didn’t wake until ten. He’d taken three paracetamol before falling into bed but as he awoke their effect had worn off and his head was thumping. The Metaxa probably also contributed to the sore head. At least the house was warm. He found his knee had stiffened as he climbed out of bed and was generally feeling decidedly ropey. But despite the combination of pain he was feeling good about himself. It was a bit similar to staying up all night winning a particularly important poker tournament. He was completely knackered next
day but there was a euphoria that came from the achievement.
He showered and looking at himself in the bathroom mirror wasn’t overly impressed with what he saw. Certainly not film star looks, he smiled to himself. He regularly looked rather tired and all of his forty-two years of age. Patches of grey were starting to emerge from his normally chestnut brown hair, especially around the ears. The bags under his eyes were testament to too many late nights and too much stress. Today though there was the unwelcome presence of a large swelling above the bridge of his nose, which was turning blue where he’d been head butted. He was not a pretty sight. As he surveyed longer, his only comfort was that being exactly six feet in height he was at least able to carry some excess weight without looking obese. The only slight damper on his spirits was when he opened the medicine cabinet and remembered he’d finished the paracetamol before going to bed.
Weekend mornings were nearly always spent at the same small coffee shop in Patcham, on the outskirts of Brighton, as you approach from the North. The expected snow had not yet arrived but it took Tom several minutes to remove the heavy frost from the windows of his old BMW. He had a small garage but could never be bothered to use it and thus paid the price on frosty mornings.
The neighbour across the road waved a greeting and seemed about to cross the road to engage in conversation, until Tom shouted out he must rush and quickly jumped in behind the wheel. Tom wasn’t feeling like polite conversation or explaining the bruising on his face. He suspected he was going to have to explain to a great many people, over the next few days, how he came about his injuries but right now he needed some coffee and hot food. He gave a small thanks to the car’s designers for its reliability, when it spluttered into life at the second turn of the key. In years gone by, he had had more than one car that didn’t like the cold and it was a lottery whether they would start on such a morning.
