Lynda La Plante - Civvies

Harry had cased the house that afternoon. Couldn't be more perfect, he assured Dillon. Run-down neighbourhood, poor street lightning, gasworks wall at one end so there was no through traffic. Derelict place directly opposite, ideal for cover. They took up positions, peering across the darkened street through a window-frame with a few shards of glass in it. Both were kitted out for night ops: black sweaters, old combat jackets, black woollen ski hats, the faithful Pumas that had seen action on Heartbreak Hill. And Harry had the Armalite, which had seen action with the Gurkhas in Brunei and the Far East. Dillon got the stomach cramps just watching him checking it over, as gentle and loving with it as a mother with her new-born babe.

'If there's anybody in there, they're crawlin' around in the dark,' Dillon decided, straining his eyes to see. He craned forward. 'No they bloody ain't – you see it, front room, right-hand side? Somethin' flickered.'

Harry was already on the move, rifle inside his combat jacket, held by the butt, pointing to the ground. 'Let's take a closer look,' he growled.

A child of six could have picked the back door lock with his Meccano plastic screwdriver. Dillon sidled in, ski mask down over his face, two ragged slits for the eyes. The kitchen was filthy and stank to high heaven. He had to watch where he stepped, there was all sorts of junk littered about the place. More a doss house than a safe house. Harry followed, treading with an incredible feline lightness and agility for such a big man.

In total silence they moved from the kitchen into the short passage leading to the front room. Blue light flickered under the door, and they could hear the muted burble of the television. Dillon touched his chest and pointed upstairs. Harry nodded. He flattened himself against the wall adjacent to the door, the rifle held slantwise across his body. Dillon went up, testing each tread before committing his weight to it.

He trod even more carefully on the bare dusty floorboards of the front bedroom, aware that a single creak would alert whoever was directly beneath him. There wasn't a stick of furniture. He knelt, and using hands as well as eyes, made sure he had it right. Three sleeping bags. A plastic holdall with a broken strap contained tee-shirts, underpants, socks, shaving cream, razor.

The bathroom was a haven for dirty towels. Two on the floor, two more stuffed over a rail, three or four in the bottom of the stained old tub. Lying in the greasy soap residue on the splash rim of the washbasin were three toothbrushes and one tube of toothpaste squeezed to within an inch of its life. He turned away and then paused, aware of a heavy subterranean thudding. It was his heart. His scalp was prickly with sweat. He hissed in a breath and crept out.

Harry hadn't moved a muscle. He stood flattened to the wall, watching Dillon slowly and silently descend. Then nodded as Dillon held up three fingers. With twenty rounds in the mag he could take out three Irish bastards and still have enough to spare for their slags and brats. Wipe out the Irish nation, that was Harry's final solution.

He went suddenly tense, and Dillon froze on the stairs. The man in the room hacked out a cough and did a couple of ferocious encores. Dillon counted to five and took another step down, letting go a breath, when the door opened and the man came out. In the poor light coming from the TV, Dillon registered only that he was young, with long hair, wearing a scruffy jacket over an open-necked shirt. He saw Dillon first, and started to backtrack into the room, grabbing the edge of the door to slam it shut. Harry sprang round from the wall, smashed the butt of the rifle into the door, knocking it back on its hinges. He swung the rifle round, levelling it. Dillon jumped the rest of the stairs. He landed in the hallway, arms up ready to dive forward and grapple with the man, when the rifle blasted. The man uttered no sound. There was a crash, a thump, and then, save for the TV burbling to itself, silence.

He was lying half on his side, face down to the carpet. One hand still clutched a grimy handkerchief. In falling he'd upset a little two-bar electric fire, a flex leading from it to the light bulb socket, which was why the room was in semi-darkness.

'He grabbed the bloody thing, Frank,' Harry complained. He ejected the empty shell, picked it up and put it in his pocket. 'Is it him?'

Dillon checked the pulse in the man's neck, but there was really no need to. His arm was flung out, away from the body, and there was a hole in the left armpit, right next to the heart. That's why he hadn't uttered a squeak.

'You've killed him.' Dillon pushed the body over onto its back. Slowly he straightened up. 'Oh my God,' he said, 'this isn't him. It's not him!'

Harry leaned over to see for himself. He squatted down on his haunches, supporting himself with the rifle. He glanced up. 'Where the hell you goin'?'

Dillon was at the door. He said, 'There were three sleepin' bags, they could be back.' He jerked his thumb savagely. 'Leave him, just leave him!' and was gone.

Harry laid the Armalite down. The dead man had nothing on him except a cheap wallet with a few quid in it. Harry put it in his pocket. He tucked the rifle under his arm and stood up, about to follow Dillon. He looked at the electric fire on its side. A thin wisp of smoke rose up where the bars had already singed the strip of carpet. With his foot, Harry pushed the fire closer to the dead man, and with a nudge, closer still, until it was touching. He reached down and picked up a bottle of Powers on the floor next to the armchair, about quarter full. He took a big mouthful, glancing towards the door, and spurted out a spray of whisky straight onto the bars. There was a whoosh of flame. The dead man's jacket sleeve ignited. Harry tossed the bottle on top of the funeral pyre and scarpered.

Dillon leaned over the washbasin, splashing cold water into his face. He blinked the water from his eyes and stared at his hands, shaking uncontrollably. His face in the mirror was ashen. He reached for the towel. From the office along the passage he could hear Harry's voice: 'Sorry to ring so late, Wally, but we're on an all-night job. Na! Bit of security work, they can't afford a dog.'

When Dillon came in, drying his hands, Harry was standing at the desk, laughing into the phone. On the blotter in front of him lay the photostats, the two images, full face, left-right profiles, stark under the lamplight. 'Just wanted to make sure you're on for some work tomorrow… yeah, G'night.' He hung up.

'You get shot of that friggin' rifle, take it back where it came from, just get the thing out,' Dillon said. He tossed the towel down and indicated the photostats with a curt nod, his eyes very dark in his pale face. 'No more. I mean it, Harry, and I'm warnin' you… Burn it, do it.'

'What's the matter, Frank, lost your bottle?'

'Yeah, maybe I have.' Dillon looked away, scowling. 'We just killed a bloke. I dunno how it makes you feel -'

'I feel fine,' Harry interrupted. He looked fine too, blue eyes bright, high colour in his cheeks, adrenalin surging through him. 'An' I sorted Wally, he thinks we're on an all-nighter.'

'Well I don't feel fine, I feel like shit. You want to keep going, then you get out of the firm. I got too much to lose, an' I'm not losin' it for you, for…' hardly hesitating '… my lads. It's over, Harry.'

'Over for you, over for them,' Harry said, a harsh edge to his voice. 'They were just kids – one of 'em, Phil, he'd only enlisted six months.'

Dillon went up, grabbed a fistful of Harry's combat jacket, his eyes blazing. 'You're using them, Harry, don't do this to me! We're in civvies, we got no right to take the law into our own hands.'

'This is Army business -'

'Bullshit. And we're not in the Army, we're in civvies.'