Souter said casually, “Saw you hitting it off with Tobin’s P.A. He certainly can pick ’em.”
“She been with him long?”
Souter was straightening his jacket, preparing himself.
“A year or so, I believe. They don’t stay too long in that kind of work . . . Who can say? She went through a bad time, I heard. Husband was killed in an air crash. Still, she’ll be safe enough with Clive.”
Ross drew himself to attention as he was introduced. Souter was used to it. He would need to be.
But all he could think about was Tobin’s grip on her arm, and her voice. It’s not safe, for either of us.
There was a large car waiting at the main entrance, a uniformed driver with the doors already open. Military policemen, redcaps, were standing nearby.
The major-general was saying, “Knew your father, of course, fine man . . .”
Doors slammed and Ross did not hear the rest.
In a day or so he would be back where he belonged, and she would have forgotten their brief contact.
He thought of her hand, the plain jade ring. A reminder, so that she would never forget, no matter what.
The dinner, at the major-general’s club in Park Lane, seemed to last forever. Their host had no difficulty keeping the conversation going, as it was mainly about himself, and his younger days when he had been a keen polo player. Souter seemed more than content to leave the field open.
Ross lost count of the various courses, apparently chosen with care well before the event, and all accompanied by the appropriate wines.
By the time it was finally finished they had the club dining room to themselves, and the few remaining waiters could barely stop yawning. There had been some sort of hint that they should move on to another late-night rendezvous, but there was only the official car, so Ross volunteered to make his own way by taxi.
It was easier said than done. There had been a film première at the Odeon in Leicester Square, and taxis were at a premium. Eventually he managed to flag one down and, feeling completely drained, he settled down and tried to consider his return to active duty in the future.
The taxi driver made a point of mentioning that Chelsea was “a bit off my beat, guv’nor” and was taking him away from the more lucrative punters. “But seein’ as you’re in uniform . . .”
The street seemed darker than usual, and the electrically operated garage door was shut, so he did not know if Sue was back or not.
He heard the driver say, “Cheers, guv, thanks a lot!” and wondered what he had given him.
He groped for the spare key she had lent him. The porter was home and in bed by now. He was lucky.
He heard the taxi increasing speed and looked back across the street. He could see the tiny red light on one of the chimneys of the power station, and remembered the tug hooting. When she had been about to leave the flat. Yesterday. The day before, as it was now.
He stifled a yawn and turned back toward the flats.
It was like being punched. He was suddenly wide awake, his spine ice cold. Not fatigue, not imagination. He gauged the position of the window, and the floor. No mistake.
The flash of light. Then nothing. He counted seconds, then saw the light again. Moving this time: a torch. Like that other occasion, a lifetime ago. The staring eyes in the beam, the blade across his back.
A thief? Somebody who knew the flat was unoccupied? The thoughts meant nothing. He was at the door, the key in the lock. There was a dim light in the entrance hall, another above the lift. He saw the porter’s telephone. Call the police? But he was already halfway up the narrow emergency staircase. Suppose he’s armed, or there’s more than one of them?
He separated the keys and slid his fingers around them, feeling the shapes as he ran his free hand over the door.
No sound. Nothing. He waited for his breathing to steady, but there was no need. Reaction, necessity, fear. What he had said to her when she had been in the flat.
He eased the key into the lock, his body poised, balanced, without feeling it. The handle was turning, a change of air as the door moved very slowly under the pressure.
For a split second he imagined he had mistaken the direction, or the floor. The room was in total darkness. And not a sound. He breathed out very slowly. Then he saw it, a faint light moving again along the bottom of a door, where he had seen Sue hang her dressing gown.
Whatever it was, the intruder was taking his time.
Now the door was opening, some of the torchlight spilling around the edge, and hesitating over a pile of magazines. And then on a hand.
Ross could feel the ice on his spine, hear the voice of the instructor. When surprise is all you’ve got, use it!
He scarcely felt himself move. He sprawled across the man’s body, his hands finding and gripping without hesitation, his knee coming forward. Like hitting something solid.
He heard a gasp of pain, and felt the immediate struggle.
“Keep still, you bastard!” He twisted an arm and heard another sharp cry.
He said, “Easy, now. We are going to stand up!” They lurched to their feet like two drunks, the door swinging against them. Ross reached out and found the light switch.
“Nice and easy now.”
The light was almost blinding. He stared at the man whose arm was locked behind him. Grey hair, expensively cut, a tweed jacket, and the watch which was pinned under his grip was a gold Rolex Submariner. A strong body, but he had to be in his late fifties at least.
His reaction was equally surprising.
“Who the fucking hell are you?”
“I was going to ask you that.”
Have you ever killed any one?
“I own this place.” Then, accusingly, “You’ve got a key! She gave it to you!”
Ross released him.
“You must be Howard Ford.”
“Of course I am!” Anger was replacing shock or fear. He was gazing at the uniform, rubbing his wrist with his other hand. “She said you’d be staying here for a few days. But I thought . . .”
“I’m her brother. I saw the torch. Thought somebody was breaking into the place.”
Ford pushed some hair from his forehead and said abruptly, “I was looking for something. Not that I have to explain to you or any one else.”
Ross saw the confidence returning, and, with it, anger. Like a court-martial, when the evidence becomes confused, and the accused goes on the attack.
I own this place. He remembered his sister’s despair, her sobbing in the night. A strong girl, too strong in many ways.
No wonder the garage was closed. Ford had been intending to stay here for the night. For as long as he chose. Not a lover, just a casual relationship.
I should understand better than any one.
Ford stood in front of a mirror, touching his face gingerly with his fingertips.
“I shall leave now. Tomorrow I will expect . . .”
Ross said to his reflection, “I’ll be gone. But don’t take it out of my sister.”
Ford had pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket.
“She is free to do as she wishes. If she is displeased with anything, she can tell me.” He turned toward the door. “She’s not a child. Can’t you see that?” His confidence was growing, like something physical. “You, an officer, a major no less, should show some understanding, instead of jumping to conclusions!”
Ross made himself count the seconds. Like those other times.
He opened his palm and laid the cuff-link on the table.
“Not like the old regiment, Mr. Ford? Is this what you were looking for?”
The door was closed, but it seemed an age before he heard the lift begin to descend.
What would Sue say when she heard about it? She would know, whether Ford told her or not. She might lose her job because of it.
I wanted to hit him. Keep on hitting him.
He walked to a window and opened it, the night air cool on his face. Then I would have lost mine.
He
picked up his green beret from the floor and touched the badge.
By Sea and Land.
So be it.
CHAPTER TEN
The khaki-painted Land Rover, with its familiar wire mesh protection and strips of armour, braked yet again to surmount the crude ‘sleeping policemen’, barriers which had been built to slow traffic. Ross Blackwood eased forward on the seat and ducked his head to peer at the nearest buildings. Shops, some old apartments, and a pub. It had been raining and the pavement was still wet, although above the serried rooftops he could see another patch of blue coming. He tried to memorize every detail. There was a checkpoint at the crossroads ahead. Sometimes it was manned, others not. The Land Rover rolled over another line of bricks and jerked down on to the road once more.
The outskirts of Londonderry. Ross heard the man beside him swear softly and say, “Don’t make a meal of it! Take each one slowly.”
The driver, another Royal Marine, almost shrugged. “Sir?” And his eyes moved briefly to the mirror, the owner of the voice and then Ross, the passenger. And that was what he felt like, most, if not all, of the time.
Over two weeks now. Not the ‘two or three days’ Clive Tobin had foreseen after that meeting. He winced as the rear wheels bounced across another obstacle.
He looked over at the pub, where a few people were standing with glasses in their hands, one teasing a ragged dog with a rolled newspaper. A couple of them might have glanced at the khaki vehicle and its four occupants, the green berets, and the Globe and Laurel insignia on either side, or perhaps at the sub-machine-gun lying across the knees of one of them.
No obvious resentment. If anything, there was only indifference.
That was probably only too true, he thought. Years since he had served in the province, but watching the passing scene it might have been yesterday. There were a few stark reminders: a boarded-up shop or gutted building, or some scarred and blackened patches on a roadway from burned-out car or petrol bomb.
He could feel his escort’s eyes on him. Major Nick Fisher was a commando like himself, with only a few months’ difference in age and service between them.
He was doing what he was told, and no more. Showing him the main centres of defence and, when necessary, attack. Where the commando patrols met or overlapped those of the army and the police. Road blocks. They were passing one now and it was manned, two grinning faces changing to stiff backs and salutes when officers were sighted.
Since his brief service here, he had noticed a lot of changes. Improvements, if they could be called that: anti-riot shields and CS gas grenades, flak jackets and night vision equipment to seek out the hit-and-run attacker who might otherwise slip past the most vigilant sentry or outpost.
No wonder they tried to keep each man’s tour of duty to a minimum.
And the hostility was there, even when it was covert and often hard to recognize. The ordinary marine from the mainland had to get used to it, or go under.
A brick, or a petrol bomb, hurled without warning and usually from the back of a crowd, became an everyday possibility. It would bring no retaliation, other than the Corps’ own brutal humour.
Some marines had been badly injured by potatoes used as missiles, each one carefully spiked with old razor blades. A very senior colour sergeant who had seen almost everything in the course of his service had said, “If I catches one of them brave bastards, I shall stick a couple of blades where they ’urt most, an’ ’e’ll not be able to ride ’is bike for a month or two without rememberin’ it!”
One of the injured marines had apparently laughed about it.
But it was hardly what they had joined up for. Ross thought of a recruiting poster he had seen on his last visit to Plymouth. Join the Royal Navy and see the World. Some wag had printed underneath it, Join the Royal Marines and see the Next!
He turned to the other major and said, “I believe you’re going on a bit of leave soon?”
Fisher came back from his thoughts.
“Next week. June – my wife – is going into hospital. Stomach trouble.” He sighed. “She tells me not to worry. She’s the one who does that.” He gestured toward the street. “This place is doing it!”
They were passing a hospital, and Ross saw the driver turn his head to eye a couple of nurses waiting for a bus. He noticed that the building’s ground floor windows were protected by wire netting. The nurses were both in uniform. Was that protection, too?
It never failed to remind him of Glynis, and the carefully worded letters he had written to various addresses gleaned from people she had known and worked with in Hong Kong. Some had been returned, Not known at this address, or simply, Gone away. Others had vanished. On his last assignment in Hong Kong, when he had visited the old sick quarters, some one had told him that Glynis had quit to take care of her husband, who had suffered a severe stroke. It had brought back the old memory, the golf clubs in the other bedroom. What Diamond had been doing when he was taken ill.
He thought of Souter in that bare office, with his U.S. Marine Corps paperweight.
You never married? Can’t say I blame you.
The girl named Sharon had probably seen that in the file, too. And wondered, if she cared enough.
Perhaps Clive Tobin had had second thoughts about coming to Ulster after all. Not his scene. Going to somewhere more newsworthy, and more exciting. Following the sun. And she would be with him.
The driver said, “Looks like trouble, sir.” He braked very slightly, and Ross saw the other marine move his submachine-gun closer to his waist.
A police car was parked at the roadside, and two officers of the R.U.C. were standing by another group outside yet another pub. One was making notes in his book; the other was watching a man sitting on the curbside, a bloodied handkerchief pressed to his nose while one of his companions was trying to tie a bandage around his wrist.
Ross noticed that the second police officer was leaning against a lamp post, head slightly turned, as if listening to something. Ross heard it: an ambulance was on its way. He had one hand resting casually on his open holster.
The driver said, “That’s Jimmy Doyle, sir. Local bookie. Always a bit slow paying out the winnings, is Jimmy!” He chuckled. “He had it coming!”
This was one marine who knew the Londonderry beyond the barbed wire and the sandbags of company headquarters.
Major Fisher grunted, “Drive on.” He dropped his voice. “Bet you’re sorry you came, Ross.”
At last the ice was breaking. Perhaps Fisher had thought he was being relieved. Sent home.
He would know about the regular communications from Colonel Souter’s department. They made Ross different. An interloper.
Fisher was saying, “I heard we were getting a visit from that television chap, Clive Tobin. God knows what he’d make of this potmess.”
They both laughed. So much for security.
The driver had been holding the intercom to his ear, watching the ambulance pass, lights flashing, perhaps on its way back to the hospital with the wired-up windows. Jimmy the bookie . . .
He said, “‘Foxtrot’, sir.”
Major Fisher touched Ross’s arm and smiled.
“Return to H.Q., Ross. It seems our V.I.P. has arrived after all!”
Ross thought of the hotel where Tobin and his party would be staying while they were in Londonderry. Used mostly by visiting government officials, possible targets, as Souter’s aide had described them, it was built like a comfortable fortress. But a fortress all the same.
He saw an armoured car driving slowly in the opposite direction. The army: the next patrol sector. The headlights blinked, a fist poked through an open shutter and gave a thumbs-up. How would Tobin find an angle, a story to his taste? Surely he would not bring Sharon into this atmosphere of patent hostility?
Through the gates and barriers, and past the guardroom with its sentries and the duty officer, a young subaltern who looked as if he was not long out of school. Eager, and very aware of two majors in on
e car. Going through the formalities. Ross saw the shadow above one of the outbuildings, a hidden marksman. In case the ID or password was incorrect.
He wondered what the young subaltern thought about it.
“Major Blackwood, sir!” It was a corporal he had seen a few times on guard duty.
“What is it, Harwood?” He only remembered the name because he had had to write a lengthy piece about the naval commodore who had won the first sea battle of World War Two, when the German pocket battleship Graf Spee had been scuttled at Montevideo, rather than surrender. A less than significant affair when compared to the carnage which would follow, but Harwood had always stuck in his mind.
“Visitor to see you, sir. Asked for you personally. Cleared by security, of course, sir.” He could have winked.
She was standing in the guardroom beside a long table, her back turned, replacing some things in her handbag.
Another corporal, much younger than the one called Harwood, was hovering on the far side of the room, obviously relieved as he said, “Major Blackwood, miss.”
She faced him, and held out her hand. “You see, Ross, I couldn’t stay away!”
She wore a two-piece suit in what he had heard Joanna describe as houndstooth tweed, with a dark green scarf knotted around her throat.
He said, “You look wonderful,” and released her hand, having taken his time over it. Expecting her to raise the barrier. He knew the two corporals were watching with interest, and some one else, a defaulter of some sort, was peering through the bars in the cell block. It would soon be all over the company H.Q. And who could blame them? She looked stunning.
She said, “I just had my bag searched.” She held up her hand again. “It’s all right. I think he was more embarrassed than I was, poor lad.” She bent over the bag for a minute and he saw a lock of hair fall across her forehead, as he remembered.
“Clive’s at the hotel. I thought I’d call and see you before we go there. You’re looking well . . .” She pretended to shiver. “God, it’s like Fort Knox around here.”
She was gazing at him in the direct way he had not forgotten. “I’ve been wondering how you were making out.” The eyes moved around the guardroom, the harsh lights overhead reflecting on the honey-coloured hair. “The Bloody Hand of Ulster, and all that.”
Knife Edge (2004) Page 15
