Rules of Engagement

by Hurley, Graham

  Gillespie had almost given up waiting by the time the woman finally arrived. He’d been sitting up on the sea wall, overlooking the water for nearly an hour, watching the patrol boats blockading the harbour approaches. They worked in pairs, idling on the edges of the swept channel, one either side of the tidal stream. Inside the harbour itself, there were more of them, criss-crossing the broad, flat expanse of slack water, obviously in radio contact, probably controlled from the big observation tower that dominated the entrance itself. Some of the boats had radar. Others were simply too small, no more than speedboats, manned by government trusties on God knows what sort of deal. Maybe they got paid by results, commission, so many quid a head. Or maybe they were doing it for the love of their Queen and the sake of their Country, two concepts that Gillespie, for the first time in his life, was beginning to suspect might not be entirely identical. Annie’s story about the road-block, despite his bluff dismissals, had made him uneasy. He’d never let a man of his club a woman to the ground. Not under any circumstances.

  He glanced inland again, looking for the tan raincoat and the red scarf, but the promenade that topped the sea wall was quite empty. He glanced at his watch. Fifteen more minutes. Then he’d go.

  A small beige Metro slowed in the main road that fed traffic into the nearby dock, signalled left and pulled onto an area of wasteland beneath the big sea wall. The dust settled and a woman got out. Gillespie recognized her at once, more casual than last time, slacks and a pink sweater, loose stitch, low neck. He got off the wall and wiped his hands on his jeans. The woman was climbing the stone steps towards him. She looked pale, but determined, somehow thinner, slighter, than before, and he wondered what had happened to her since they’d last met. He extended a hand. She barely touched it. She was out of breath.

  ‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ she said, ‘it’s been difficult.’

  Gillespie nodded at the car.

  ‘How did you get in?’

  ‘In from where?’

  ‘Your house? Into the city?’

  She looked at him.

  ‘How do you know where we live?’ she said. ‘It’s ex-directory.’

  Gillespie reached into the top pocket of his jacket and produced the photo of her husband.

  ‘This,’ he said, ‘the view behind.’

  She glanced at the photograph a moment. Her husband on the swing. The city, slightly out of focus, in the haze below.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘how clever.’

  Gillespie shrugged, letting her keep the photograph. He produced an envelope, sealed.

  ‘Here,’ he said, holding it out, ‘it’s all in here. Name. Address. Phone number.’

  She looked at the envelope, making no attempt to accept it. Perhaps she’d decided that ignorance was kinder than the truth. Perhaps she’d decided that one last night and a salvo or two of Soviet ICBMs were preferable to a name and a face and hours of bitter fantasy.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘where does she live?’

  Gillespie frowned a moment, then squinted east. Ocean Towers was clearly visible about a mile away, on the other side of the common, a big twelve-storey block, head and shoulders above the rest of the parade.

  ‘There. Ocean Towers. Number 913.’

  She nodded, the secret out, bricks and mortar, just another address.

  ‘I see,’ she said. ‘And what does she look like?’

  ‘You really want to know?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  Gillespie shrugged, remembering the face in the viewfinder, wondering whether to break the news about the missing film.

  ‘She’s young,’ he said.

  ‘Very young?’

  ‘No …’ he glanced across at her, wondering how best to phrase it, ‘but, you know …’

  ‘Younger than me.’

  It was a statement rather than a question. Gillespie nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  She looked unsurprised.

  ‘Pretty?’

  Gillespie shrugged again.

  ‘OK,’ he said, ‘quite nice.’

  ‘Tasty?’ She paused. ‘Isn’t that the phrase?’

  ‘Depends …’ He looked at her, recognizing the tone of voice, the old temptation to blame the messenger. He’d been here before, often, but now he was past all that. Fifteen quid an hour didn’t run to abuse. She looked him in the eye, not giving up.

  ‘Depends on what, Mr Gillespie?’

  ‘Depends on what you like.’

  ‘Did you think she was tasty?’

  ‘Me?’ He laughed at her, a short low grunt of laughter. ‘I just hoped she was in focus.’

  ‘Just another job?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he nodded, giving her what she wanted, yet another macho response, corroboration of her case. All men are pigs.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said again, ‘just another job.’

  She looked at him a little longer, then opened her shoulder bag and produced a small leather purse.

  ‘How much do I owe you?’

  ‘Another forty pounds,’ Gillespie said. ‘Eighty all up.’

  She counted out the money, new ten-pound notes, and gave them to him without comment, accepting the envelope in return. Gillespie folded the notes and stowed them in his back pocket. The woman glanced down at the envelope. Gillespie’s careful capitals. Her husband’s name. Her appellation. Her label. Mrs Goodman.

  ‘Tell me something, Mr Gillespie …’ she looked up, the tone of her voice quite different, softer, more philosophical. ‘Are you married?’

  Gillespie glanced at her, taken by surprise.

  ‘Was,’ he said finally, ‘once.’

  ‘Children?’

  ‘One.’

  ‘Boy? Girl?’

  ‘Boy.’

  ‘You see him still? Now?’

  Gillespie nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘a lot.’

  ‘Ah …’ She nodded, turning over the information in her mind, laying it out, inspecting it, looking again for easy parallels. She glanced up at him again, very direct. ‘And how did your wife feel,’ she tapped the envelope, ‘when she got one of these?’

  Gillespie eyed her.

  ‘She didn’t,’ he said coldly. ‘It wasn’t like that.’

  The woman looked away, quickly, and began to redden. She swallowed hard.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘it’s none of my business.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Gillespie said. ‘It’s not.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again, ‘truly sorry.’

  Gillespie shrugged, embarrassed by the conversation.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘No offence.’

  She looked at him again, and he saw the uncertainty, and the grief, nothing in focus, everything out of control. He felt vaguely sorry for the woman, just another victim of a lifetime’s misconceptions. Someone who’d got it wrong but had spared herself the news until it was far too late. He glanced at her, expecting her to do what they all did, to sniff a little, and to dab at her eyes, and wonder very plaintively whether she couldn’t ask his advice. But he was wrong. There wasn’t a shred of bitterness left in her voice. Just a bald, comfortless recognition of the facts.

  ‘Do you know what’s so sad, Mr Gillespie?’ she said.

  ‘No.’

  She began to stow the envelope away in her bag.

  ‘It’s men. They never grow up. They never learn. All this …’ She gestured round, the patrol boats in the harbour, the distant thunder of a jet fighter climbing under full power. She snapped the bag shut and looked at him. ‘My husband’s a child. Just like the rest of them. He’s never grown up. Ever. He wants what he can’t have, and he’ll destroy everything before he gets it.’ She smiled at him, a cold mirthless smile. ‘Ironic, don’t you think? Now that he’s got the whole city to play with?’

  Duggie Bullock met Martin Goodman at the door of the studios. Goodman had changed in the hour or so since they’d last met. Different suit, different shirt, and a pair of Seventies glasses that gave his face a curiousl
y wooden look.

  The two men nodded to each other but said nothing. Davidson followed them both into a studio where a technical crew were ready to shoot Goodman’s piece to camera. Goodman settled behind the presentation desk, very still, very contained, very sure of himself, not looking at anybody, not risking a smile, or a greeting, or anything that might break his concentration. Davidson retired to the adjacent control room. Bullock stood in the shadows, waiting and watching. The floor manager called the studio to readiness and counted Goodman down. At zero, he looked up and began to talk.

  Public Communiqué Number One lasted four minutes. Goodman did it in a single take, without notes, without autocue, without once having to reach for a phrase or remember a detail. When he’d finished, and the studio lights had been dimmed again, he asked for the recording to be played back, watching it on the little black and white monitor sunk into the presentation desk. He bent to the screen, listening intently, finding no ambiguity in the crisp, clear phrases, recognizing with a strange and growing detachment the expression in his eyes, something never there before, a glint, a gleam, establishing beyond doubt that, at last, he meant what he said. Here was a man who’d tired of irresolution and half measures. Here was someone who wouldn’t be frightened of facing up to the hard decisions. They were right, he thought grimly as he heard himself wish the city goodnight. The camera never lied.

  The review over, he got up from behind the presentation desk and stepped out onto the studio floor. The floor manager motioned him to hang on for a moment while he bent his head and listened to a message from the Control Room in his headphones. The message came from Davidson. The floor manager looked up.

  ‘One more take, please, sir,’ he said. ‘A little less stern.’

  Goodman shook his head.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘you’ll have to make do with that.’

  He patted the floor manager on the shoulder, and walked across to meet Davidson by the door. Davidson was looking, if anything, amused.

  ‘Dear me,’ he said, ‘Nigel won’t be at all pleased.’

  The two men disappeared into the Control Room, and Bullock stirred in the shadows in the far corner of the studio. He’d seen the beginnings of mental breakdown before, and he recognized the symptoms. The floor manager walked across to him, still confused about who was in charge.

  ‘OK, boss?’ he said, nodding at the empty presentation desk.

  Bullock shrugged. ‘Who knows?’ he said. ‘I’d stay tuned, if I were you.’

  It took Albie Curtis exactly forty-seven minutes to realize he wasn’t going to make a fortune from miracle emulsion. He’d rung his sister’s best friend from a pay phone in the pub at the dock gate. She was in the middle of a perm – her first for a day and a half – but she had time to read him a list of names and addresses, punters who’d phoned in, impressed by Albie’s claims for the anti-blast paint, wanting the treatment for their own windows. Albie had noted the details on the wall beside the phone, memorized the first address, and driven straight round in the van.

  His first clients had been an elderly retired couple, three streets back from the seafront. They occupied the top floor of a big Victorian five-storey house, sub-divided into flats. They had two windows at the front, and the windows were at least fifty feet above ground level. Albie, who hated heights, stood by his van and gazed up. His only ladder had three rungs missing and would barely reach the window boxes on the second floor. He was on the point of returning to the pub for another address, when the couple appeared at the top window, shocks of white hair, beckoning fingers. Against his better judgement, Albie lifted a brush, and a tin of white emulsion, and headed for the front door.

  The flat was spotless, a time warp from the early fifties: squirly carpet, and heavy chairs, and a big old standard lamp in one corner. The old man had obviously spent most of his life in the Navy. There were photographs of warships everywhere, lovingly framed, good quality hardwood, and shots of a younger face, gap-toothed, permanently grinning. Albie looked around. He fingered a 4.5″ shell casing, solid brass, knee high, one of a pair flanking the tiny gas fire. There were places in the city that would pay good money for this kind of gear.

  The old man buried his roll-up in a big glass ashtray and introduced his wife, a small bird-like woman with crossed legs and a nervous smile. Albie gave her a nod, noticing more brass on the bookcase behind her head. Neat little ornaments, oriental stuff, souvenirs from runs ashore in the Far East, Hong Kong, Singapore.

  ‘The windows …’ the old man was saying, ‘that paint of yours …’

  ‘Yeah?’ Albie said absently, picking up a heavy junk-shaped paperweight, and examining the Chinese characters on the bottom. Brass was hard to come by. Blokes in the market would part with serious dosh. He turned round. The woman was reading the leaflet he’d stuffed through the door. Blast-proof wonder paint. NASA-approved. She looked up at him. She was much tougher than she seemed.

  ‘Arthur swears by this,’ she said, nodding at her husband. ‘Says it’s just what we need.’

  ‘He’s right.’

  ‘I’ve told him we’ll try it on the front ones first. See how it goes. If it works, you can come back and do the windows at the back.’

  Albie stared at her. ‘There won’t be any windows at the back,’ he said. ‘That’s the whole point.’

  ‘Just those two,’ she said again, nodding at the front windows, ignoring him.

  The old man was looking at the paint Albie had left on the carpet.

  ‘What’s the score, then?’ he said.

  ‘Ten quid a window,’ Albie said. He walked across the room and glanced down at the street. It was even higher than he’d thought. He turned back into the room. ‘Half price if you do it yourself.’

  The old man’s wife shook her head at once.

  ‘Arthur’s not doing it,’ she said, ‘you are.’

  Albie looked at them both, at the bric-à-brac, at the paint pot, wondering whether the times justified simple robbery. Maybe he should just pocket the stuff and leave. He’d be away in seconds. They’d never even know. Then he remembered the leaflet, and the phone number, and decided against it. He was far from convinced the world was about to end, and rash decisions had always returned to haunt him. He walked across to the window again and looked out. The street was no closer. He picked up the brush.

  ‘Got any newspaper?’ he said.

  The woman frowned. ‘What do you want newspaper for?’ she said.

  ‘Save your carpet,’ he said. ‘We always paint the inside of the window.’

  Three-quarters of an hour later, Albie was back in the street. The job had taken for ever, the woman watching his every move, hovering at his elbow, warning him against drips, making him sponge the carpet where the paint had splashed beyond the newspaper. At the end of it all, in what was left of the daylight, he’d tried to hassle them for the non-ferrous, the shell cases and the Chinese paperweight, but they’d hung onto them, carefully counting out the twenty pounds, coins mostly, from a jam jar hidden in a sliding cupboard. Afterwards, the jam jar half emptied, the old man had asked about a written guarantee.

  ‘What happens if it doesn’t work?’ he said, ‘where do we get hold of you?’

  Thoroughly depressed, Albie had bent to the carpet and retrieved the leaflet.

  ‘Here,’ he said, handing the old man the leaflet. ‘Give us a ring when the war’s over. If the stuff’s no good, I’ll come round and do it again.’

  Now, driving the van back into the dock, Albie brooded about the prospects for the rest of the paint. Twenty quid for an hour’s work was pathetic. At this rate, he wouldn’t even cover his costs. He turned the van into the dock and brought it to a halt beside the Timothy Lee. Mick was standing on the quay, looking down at another boat moored alongside. It was about the same length, sixty foot or so, but it was a motor yacht, brand new, gleaming paintwork, flared bow, scrubbed teak deck, tinted glass. Albie got out of the van and stared down at it. It belonged in a movie, or o
ne of those slick TV commercials. It looked unreal.

  ‘What’s that?’ he said.

  Mick shook his head, thoughtful. ‘Dunno …’ he said slowly, ‘something to do with Harry.’

  Gillespie drove towards Sandra’s, eyeing the fuel gauge. Twenty miles, he thought. Just enough.

  He parked outside Sandra’s house. The road was emptier than he’d ever seen it. He rang the doorbell. Sean opened the door. He nodded at the boy, seeing the rucksack and an old Service issue suitcase of his standing by the door, already packed.

  ‘Yours?’ he said.

  The boy nodded. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Your mum?’

  ‘She’s in the kitchen.’

  Gillespie nodded and stepped into the house. Sandra was sitting on a stool in the kitchen, slicing onions. There was a bowl of stewing steak on the table, and a pile of potatoes, and some carrots, and celery, and a couple of Oxo cubes. A bottle of red wine stood on the fridge. A Burgundy. Good year. She definitely wasn’t making sandwiches.

  Gillespie closed the door behind him.

  ‘Settling in?’ he said, nodding at the food on the table.

  Sandra glanced up, and wiped her eye with the back of her hand. Gillespie could smell the onions.

  ‘Little something to eat,’ she said.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Tonight.’ She raised one eyebrow. ‘That allowed?’

  Gillespie frowned. ‘I thought I said we were off.’ He paused. ‘Out of it.’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘So why …’ he nodded at the table again, ‘all this?’

  There was a silence. Sandra finished chopping the onions and tipped the board over a big glass oven-proof dish. Gillespie had no taste for casseroles, but he knew enough about cooking to recognise the meal couldn’t possibly be ready for at least a couple of hours. Sandra crumbled the Oxo cubes over the onions in the bottom of the dish. Gillespie glanced at his watch. Six o’clock. Time was moving on.

  ‘I’ll be back,’ he said, ‘in an hour.’

  ‘Oh?’ She looked up. ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘To pick you up. Get your stuff ready. The boy’s already packed.’

  He began to turn for the door. She called him back.