Shadows of Good Friday (Alex King Book 3)

by A P Bateman

  King looked at Forsyth and nodded in agreement. “What happened to the agent?”

  Forsyth waved a hand in a dismissive gesture. “Oh, he carried out a few bombings. The IRA never suspected a thing. Then he got pulled out suddenly. Seemed that the mandarins, the powers that be, had a change of heart. An RUC officer was killed; suddenly the situation became too hot. He quit the service soon after.”

  King shook his head. “How could that poor man ever sleep again at night?” he mused.

  “He sees the bigger picture now.”

  “You?” King asked sharply.

  “I was offered a position in MI6 shortly afterwards,” Forsyth paused. “And with the whole picture in front of me now, I sleep just fine.” He looked at the specialist. “It’s all a game of cowboys and Indians, Alex. But there is a bigger picture to all that we see. Nuclear weapons? Lord no, what a terrible waste of money and bad ethics. But Russia has them, will one day threaten to use them, so they suddenly seem a sound investment. This whole Northern Ireland thing is rubbish, but while we still have it and are scared to get rid of it, for whatever reason, pride more than likely, we still have to play the game.”

  King studied the man in front of him. He didn’t know whether he respected him or loathed him. A little of both, he supposed. “Alright, what’s the plan then?”

  27

  “What’s the matter?” Lisa watched as he sank the contents of the glass in one mouthful, then slammed the vessel down onto the delicate Edwardian table. “None of your damned business, woman!” He stared at the empty glass, then raised an eyebrow. “Well? Can you not see that it’s empty?” She nodded dutifully, then hurriedly stepped forward and picked up the glass. He caught hold of her by the arm, gripping the sleeve of her silk nightgown. “You’re next to bloody useless.” He shook his head in exaggerated despair. “Don’t take the glass, just bring me the bloody bottle!”

  “Sorry, Keith.” She waited for him to release her from his clasp, then hurried over to the drinks cabinet. She studied the row of bottles, then turned around.

  “What’s the matter now?”

  She glanced down at the floor, then looked up at him. “I’m sorry, I can’t remember what you were drinking.”

  “Nor can I,” Keith scoffed. He ran a hand through his greying hair, scratched at the bald patch on top. “You’ve taken so bloody long; it seems to have slipped my memory.” He picked up his glass, then made an act of sniffing the vapour from the remnants. “Oh, brandy! That would be nice, I can hardly remember what it tastes like!”

  She turned around and opened the glass-fronted cabinet. She ran her fingers along the various bottles, then stopped when she reached the bottle of D. Campeny VSOP. She took out the bottle and held it up. “Is this it?”

  “Oh for God’s sake, woman!” He rubbed his forehead as if it pained him, then sighed dramatically. “Yes, absolutely perfect,” he paused as she walked back towards him. “For my acquaintances and your bloody mother! There’s a decanter of one hundred-year-old Armagnac at the back of the cabinet. It’s not labelled, so you won’t have to worry about spelling it!” He laughed at his little quip, then looked at his watch as if to time her.

  Lisa caught hold of the bottle, then walked back towards him. Keith looked up at her, studying her attire. She was dressed in satin French knickers and matching camisole, and was covered up with a Chinese silk nightgown. “What the hell are you dressed up like that for? You do realise that you look like a tart, don’t you?” She closed her eyes, not wanting to bite. “Are you fucking ignoring me now?”

  She shook her head and forced a passive smile. “No, I thought you liked me in this, that’s all,” she lied. She had been given no alternative. He had thrown out her comfortable pyjamas and towelling dressing gown. She had merely gone along with the outfit like a dutiful geisha. It was a game of survival.

  He sneered, then shook his head. “Well?” She stared at him, confused. She knew what it would be like for the rest of the evening, when he got into one of these moods, there was just no stopping him. “The bottle, woman, the bloody bottle!” He let out a groan and picked up his glass. “Would it be too much to ask you to let go of the damn bottle?”

  She glanced down, unable to conceal her surprise. Her mind had been elsewhere, trying to keep up with the man’s vicious verbal onslaught. Her only thoughts were of how to keep the onslaught verbal and not let it progress to physical. She bent down and placed the decanter on the table.

  Keith smiled. “Well, it’s a start. Now, if we could just remember to remove the stopper and get some of it into the glass, we would be getting somewhere.”

  “Sorry.” She hurriedly removed the ground-glass stopper, then held the decanter above the glass in his outstretched hand. She shook nervously, then clipped the neck of the decanter against the rim of the glass, spilling some of the liquid onto his trousers. “Oh my god! I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” She pulled it away in a panic, spilling yet more of the contents.

  “You, stupid bitch…” he said quietly. It was the quietness that scared her the most. He stood up abruptly. “That was one-hundred-year old Armagnac!” He swung his arm out, catching her with a back-fist to the jaw. She let out a yelp as she was hurled backwards by the force of the blow, landing in a heap on the polished wooden floor. The decanter fell from her grasp, spilling the remainder of the contents on the nearby Persian rug. Keith stepped forward, bent down and tenderly picked it up. “Look what you did…” He stared down at her with contempt. He set it down on the table, then stood directly above her with his hands on his hips.

  Lisa rubbed her right hand over her jaw, soothing the area, which now felt like fire upon her cheek. A trickle of blood seeped from between her fingertips and ran over the back of her hand.

  Keith shook his head in despair. “You’re pathetic! I’ve seen better than you begging at Kings Cross. You’re nothing but a cheap, common little tramp. A tramp that I pulled from the gutter.” He reached down and unfastened the button to his trousers, then slowly pulled down the zip. “A whore, straight from the gutter. I took you out of it, and I can put you right back there. Don’t ever forget that.”

  Lisa closed her eyes. She knew what he was feeling, what he had been trying for all evening. He received a perverse sexual gratification from treating her this way. He had set up the situation for maximum relish of domineering power. He had beaten her for two years now. An argument had become too heated and he had lashed out. Now it was becoming more frequent. But it had all changed three-months ago when he had come home drunk and forced himself on her. Now the arguments, the beating always led to this. It had happened a handful of times, and it shamed her more that she had stayed. That she had stopped counting and not taken David and left. But she reasoned that Keith had not yet reached his true potential. To leave him, to flee his wrath made her question what would happen to both David and herself if he ever found them. The thought made her blood run cold.

  She pulled herself onto the chaise longue and looked up at him pleadingly, despairingly. “Please, Keith, don’t.” She pulled the silk nightgown over her shapely legs, then wiped a trickle of blood away from her full lips.

  He let his trousers drop to the floor, then pulled down his boxer shorts, exposing himself to her. “I bet he liked you in those clothes. I bet he appreciated your prostitute outfits...”

  Her pleading expression turned to a look of pure contempt. He had hurt her, violated her, and degraded her, but she was no longer scared. There was little else that he could do to her now. She just wanted to be treated like a human being again. Maybe she would get the strength to leave. Maybe she would make this the last time.

  She stared into his eyes defiantly and smiled. “Yes,” she said with sincere satisfaction. “Yes, he loved my clothes. He loved my satin, my silk, everything. And he always liked me to wear them when we made love.”

  “No!” Keith covered his ears momentarily in an almost childlike gesture, then screwed his face up in anger. “He was a nobody! A
dirty, useless nobody!”

  “What, like me? That’s how you treat me! That’s how you make me feel! And I hate you for it!” Lisa pulled herself up higher on the chaise longue and stared at him venomously. “He was a lot of things Keith, but at least he never laid a finger on me!” She rose to her feet and stood opposite him, less than two feet away. “And he would make love to me, like a real man, not some vile rapist!” She reached up and ripped the silk nightgown apart, revealing her small, firm breasts. “Come on then! Why don’t you try to be a real man? See if you really are better than him!” She fell back onto the soft velvet of the chaise longue and pulled the nightgown up around her hips, exposing her long, slender legs and just a hint of her neatly trimmed pubic hair. She smiled seductively, then started to finger her nipples gently. “Come on lover, give it your best shot…” She ran her hands delicately down her flat stomach, then circled her fingertips through the small triangle of coarse pubic hair. Then, as she stared defiantly into his eyes, she spread her legs wide, her knees to her breasts, and rested her fingertips, delicately covering herself. “Take me like a real man, Keith. Make me come. There’s a first time for everything…” The victory filled her with elation, and she couldn’t help herself when she added, “Come fuck me, don’t be quick, I want you to last as long as a real man does!”

  He stared down at her, perplexed. Deflated, broken. He turned his gaze to his flagging manhood, limp and irrelevant. He bent down and picked up his trousers. And as he silently left the room, Lisa could swear that she saw tears in his eyes.

  She would leave him. She knew she would. She had the strength to leave him, and she wouldn’t give a damn if he found her. She covered herself up, and started to laugh and weep at the same time. It felt joyous, and she felt empowered for the first time in years.

  28

  Simon Grant looked at the luminous dials of the alarm clock on the bedside table. One minute to go. He groaned inwardly, having seen-in every hour, without so much as a single wink of precious sleep. He could not be bothered to wait for the alarm’s monotonous tone, desperately counting off every second in between, so he reached out and switched it off, then swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

  He stood up, stretched, and walked over to the sink, where he turned on the cold tap, let some water run into the stained enamel bowl, then splashed a handful over his face. It was only now that he started to feel tired; the effects of missing a full night’s sleep were starting to kick in. His teeth started to chatter, and his whole body shook with the combined effects of the early morning chill and the indecent hour.

  He heard footsteps approaching along the landing’s timeworn floorboards, and hurriedly pulled on his trousers. A brief, but heavy knock sounded against the door, before it opened abruptly, to admit McCormick’s head.

  “Looks like I nearly caught yer out!” He grinned as he watched Grant fasten his belt. “Just thought I’d check that you were up and about. The boys are ready, just fixing themselves some scoff. Do yer want some?”

  Grant nodded. “Yeah, just some toast, please.” He slipped a grey sweatshirt over his head, then looked quizzically at McCormick. “You didn’t think that I’d do a runner, did you?”

  McCormick shook his head. “No. It sounds as if the boss has you too firmly by the balls for that. Nothing more you can do, except co-operate,” he said, glancing briefly at the floor. “Me and the lads didn’t know, we’re sorry. Just do your job and we’ll all get what we want.”

  Grant scoffed. “And what is it that you want?”

  “Peace in a united Ireland,” he said, holding up his hands defensively. “That’s all anybody wants.”

  Grant sat back down on the bed and pulled on his socks. “You’ve got the chance of peace right now. You have the peace agreement, the supposed ceasefire. But still you kill each other, you don’t want peace, you just want to rule the roost.”

  “Aye, whatever you think.” McCormick shook his head. “You don’t understand,” he paused, then added, “The likes of you will never understand.”

  “I understand all too well,” he retaliated, looking at him in earnest. “Christian, Catholic, Buddhist, Jewish, Protestant, Muslim, Hindu. Well, that was just on the housing estate where Frank Holman and I grew up. West-Indian, Pakistani, Indian, Chinese, Nigerian, Algerian… Christ knows, who else. No different from many other communities all over the country. There is the odd bit of racial violence, carried out by mindless yobs; I’m not disputing that. But do they plant car bombs? Do they blow up innocent people?” Grant shook his head in desperation. “Of course not! London is full of different cultures, yet are they machine-gunning each other?” He bent to pull on his black training shoes, then glanced back up at McCormick. “People can learn to live with their differences. Swallow your pride. Your leaders did, at the peace talks, so can you.”

  McCormick glared defiantly. “Nobody came into your country and separated it. Nobody decided that part of your country would become a new territory, that you would be given a new status, while your family kept theirs, just because they lived a few miles away.” McCormick turned towards the door. “You just don’t understand.”

  Grant shook his head and stood up. “Maybe I don’t, maybe people like me never will. But what I do know, is that hundreds of people have died, many of them had nothing to do with the situation. They didn’t even know what it was all about, but their lives were taken from them none the less. Your political leaders have recognised this; they worked hard in the peace talks, they swallowed their pride and turned towards change. They compromised. The British Government compromised. Why can’t you?”

  ***

  Forsyth peered through the thick border of rhododendron bushes that screened the house. A light shone from the upstairs window, then, moments later, a fluorescent light flickered downstairs, before brightly illuminating a window.

  He pulled back a thin bushy branch, to get a clearer view of the side of the house. The black Porsche was parked next to Frank Holman’s Mercedes. It squatted low, like a big cat poised ready to pounce. Its haunches were rounded, well-muscled, sleek. Compared to the new arrival, the Mercedes looked like a brick. Behind the Mercedes, almost out of sight was Neeson’s blue Saab.

  Forsyth smiled. The tracking device had sounded, as he had rounded the corner and switched on the laptop. But now, he had an all-important visual.

  He hopped down from the wall and strolled casually back to his Rover 620. He opened the door and slipped inside, then reached for his silver cigarette case.

  On the horizon, dawn was breaking, filling the distant sky with a blaze of crimson. Forsyth flicked open the silver case and extracted one of his handmade, Turkish cigarettes. He slipped it between his thin lips and smiled. He had located Neeson in time, but only with the breaking light of dawn had he been able to confirm the presence of both vehicles. He flicked the wheel of his lighter and brought the flame to the tip of the cigarette, inhaled deeply and blew out a thin plume of smoke. He flicked the excess ash into the ever-filling ashtray, then smiled to himself. He had them now. It was just a matter of patience.

  ***

  King brought the field glasses up to his eyes and studied the farmhouse again, remaining perfectly still, shrouded by a layer of camouflaged netting on the fringe of the thick foliage. He had been in position since four a.m. - waiting for any signs of life from within the house. He had watched the day break lazily from total blackness into the dim light of dawn. Now, at five-thirty a.m., it was almost completely light.

  Lights had appeared from within the house at a little after five o’clock and both cars had been driven out from the barn and parked in front of the farmhouse approximately ten-minutes ago. The time was close; he just had to wait.

  He listened intently to the chatter in his earpiece, waiting for the nervous conversation to die. It reminded him of soldier talk in the mess-room or barracks before an operation. He had accompanied soldiers in Northern Ireland, there was always nervous talk before a patrol. It struck h
im that the world over, whatever the side, the players were the same. The chatter died down suddenly and King new it was the much-awaited cue.

  ***

  “Right lads! Shut yourselves up and sit the fuck down!” O’Shea perched himself on the work surface and waited for the men to do as instructed. “Time for a final check.”

  The men watched him intently. The atmosphere was stiff with adrenaline and anticipation. O’Shea looked at each of the men in turn. “Two hours’ time, and you should be home and dry,” he paused as he glanced at the courtyard outside, then turned back to his audience. “The cars are outside; Ross and Sean have loaded them up. The equipment and rifles are in the boots.” He looked at McCormick. “You and Grant will ride in the Peugeot, driven by Sean. When you arrive at the racecourse, you will take the bag of equipment. Leave Grant’s hands free.” He picked up his cup and sipped a mouthful of coffee, then turned to the rest of the men. “You lot will ride in the Ford with Sean. Again, you will carry the equipment between you, no petty squabbling, you all carry a load.” The men nodded in unison and O’Shea smiled. “Good.” He then looked at Grant, who was twiddling his thumbs nervously. “Grant, you will have just under ten-minutes to get that safe open,” he paused. “You can do it, can’t you?” The men all turned their eyes expectantly towards Grant, watching him in earnest.

  Grant looked at them, then turned to stare back to O’Shea. “Yeah, I can do it.”

  O’Shea smiled. “Good.” He glanced at his watch, then looked at the rest of the men. “Better get going then.”

  Grant followed McCormick across the courtyard to where the two cars were ticking over, with Ross and Sean in the drivers’ seats. Dugan and Liam got into the back of the Ford Mondeo, and Patrick, who would have been greatly restricted anywhere but in the front seat, walked around the bonnet and opened the passenger door. He turned around and held a thumb up to McCormick, who returned the gesture and opened the near side rear door of the Peugeot.