Peter Corris - Torn Apart

'Then the Soviets and the Cubans hopped in with tanks and planes and the slaughter went on and on. Those bloody Africans hate each other worse than they hate us, and they hate us like poison. The different sides started to enlist mercenaries-a few of them got themselves topped in '76, but they were just the ones the media picked up. Hostages were being taken every other day and murdered and mercenaries, a lot of them undocumented in the sort of language Martin likes, just fuckin' disappeared. This went on well into the eighties when the world's attention had switched elsewhere. Some of those militia leaders who felt they'd missed out on the goodies or had axes to grind were getting dollops of money from here and there and still recruiting.'

'Ratbag people like the Olympic Corps,' I said.

Cummings showed more emotion than he had so far. 'I know where you got that, from Paddy Malloy. All fuckin' wrong. It was an elite group. The best.'

Couldn't buck that sincerity. 'Okay,' I said.

'You can't imagine what it was like fighting in that country. Just existing's hard enough. The border with the Congo was like a sieve, anyone could get across and the Congo River, in case you don't know, has these heavily wooded islands in it you can hide in, retreat to, attack river traffic from. Angola's all fuckin' mountains when it isn't swamp and jungle. Insects to eat you alive, elephant grass to slice you to bits. Malaria… anyway, we were fighting for this splinter group from the MPLA faction that pretty well had everyone else against it. Did well, too, scored some heavy hits.'

The energy seemed to drain out of him. He drank some wine, took a pill bottle from his pocket, shook some pills into his palm and took them with another gulp of wine. There was no blarney now, no performance. He was living the experience.

'We were betrayed and ambushed. We lost two good men and twelve of us were taken. There were four Australians in the team including Malloy, but he was a plant, working for UNITA.'

'And for his country,' Milton-Smith said.

'Oh, that's right. Your government was very opposed to any of its citizens being mercenaries. Happy for them to fight for the fuckin' Brits and Americans anywhere in the world, but not for themselves. Not for filthy lucre.'

'Not for communists,' Milton-Smith said.

Cummings ignored him. 'He betrayed us. We were hauled off to a bush jail and I'm telling you Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib're picnic spots compared to that. We were beaten and starved and raped. My brother, a year younger than me, was beaten to death, slowly, right in front of me.'

'What happened to you, Seamus?' Sheila said.

'Oh, I was beaten, too, and shot and buried, but I survived, after a fashion. I spent some time with decomposing corpses. It hurts your mind as well as your body and it's something people like you wouldn't know anything about. I got back on my feet for a while, as you know, Sheila, but it all caught up with me in the end. This fuckin' cancer came as no surprise. I lived just to come face to face with Paddy Malloy and I came to Australia time and time again to look for him, but I never found him.'

'That's why you freaked out when you saw my picture of him,' Sheila said.

'Right, darlin'. I missed my chance then. I got drunk and went to jail and when I got out you'd gone and he'd gone and I was back where I started.'

'How did you know Paddy betrayed you?' Sheila said.

'I can answer that,' Milton-Smith said. 'He tortured a man to death to get the information about Malloy. Very nasty.'

'And then you saw him at the Ballintrath ceilidh,' I said.

'I did and it was a sweet moment. He didn't see me. He was too busy dancing and he was too pissed. I made myself scarce, but I knew him at once. I've kept tabs on you and him ever since. Missed you here and there but I picked you up again. I've had some help.'

I shook my head and he laughed.

'Don't get upset, Hardy. I had professional help. Better than you or maybe just younger. Fuck it. Paddy Malloy killed my comrades and my brother and left me a wreck and that's why I did for him in a way he'd understand. I'd do it again. I wish to Christ I could do it again.'

Cummings's head was bowed and he was crying quietly.

'I told Paddy about the Travellers, him being a Malloy and all, when we… when I thought we were comrades,' he said through his tears. 'He didn't know much about it and he was interested. It was like a double betrayal, d'you see?'

Sheila shuffled her chair along and put her hand on Cummings's shoulder. 'Why didn't you leave the country after you'd killed Paddy? It was so risky to stay.'

Cummings sniffed and blinked away the tears. 'Nothing's risky for a man in my condition, darlin'. I had some old friends to see and I really wanted to go to this gathering. Just to be there, to see the faces and hear the music.'

'Touching,' Milton-Smith said, 'but the fact remains that you murdered an Australian intelligence agent.'

'So arrest me,' Cummings said. 'The fuck do I care? I'm a dead man walking.' He smiled and lifted his tear-stained face to look at Sheila. 'Sitting, that is.'

Milton-Smith stood and poured himself a small measure of scotch. 'True, it was all a good time back, but we can't have it getting out that an Australian intelligence agency conspired to have some of our citizens… eliminated. However delinquent they may have been. There were a couple of Australians in that merry band, recruited by the Cummings brothers. The good professor didn't pick them up in his research.'

I was getting tired of Milton-Smith and I was angry with Casey, whose carelessness had let the spooks into the picture. 'I hope you're getting all this down on your cleverly concealed tape recorder, Jack,' I said.

Casey stirred for the first time since our arrival. Fumbling, he relit his cigar that had gone out and puffed smoke at Milton-Smith. 'I'm sorry, Cliff. I've screwed everything up badly. This bastard has me by the balls.'

'In a manner of speaking,' Milton-Smith said. 'Professor Casey has been indiscreet, we find, with one or two of his students. His career is in my hands, rather than his balls.'

I'd been in a similar situation once before, when the spooks had stepped into an investigation and tied it all up in a way that suited them and left me, and others, no room for manoeuvre.

'So tell us about the cover-up,' I said, 'and why we all have to go along with it.'

'I wouldn't put it quite that way,' Milton-Smith said.

'I'd rather say that, in the interest of national security and the reputation of some of our valued institutions, certain arrangements have to be made.'

Sheila laughed. 'Meaning you're going to cover up a murder.'

'They've already started to do that,' I said. 'They closed down the police investigation. Isn't that right, Martin?'

Milton-Smith took a sip of his scotch, enjoying himself. 'An example of what I said, arrangements being made.'

Sheila said, 'I can see why Jack's going to keep quiet about it, but…'

Milton-Smith began to tick points off-right index finger against left thumb. 'Let me make it clear, then. One, I doubt that Mr Cummings wants to spend his few remaining weeks in a prison hospital. In fact I happen to know he has excellent palliative care all lined up. Very sensible. Two, the film you're hoping to work on, Ms Fitzsimmons, dealing as it does with actual events and characters, doesn't quite have all its financing in place. Close, but not quite. It can also be subject to legal injunctions that would delay or frustrate it altogether. Do you follow?'

'You bastard,' Sheila said. 'What about Cliff? He's got media contacts. He could blow the story wide open.'

'Ah, yes, Mr Hardy, defrocked private enquiry agent who's already served time in prison for serious offences and who allegedly imported dangerous substances into this country. If convicted, he'd be looking at ten years' imprisonment.'