Stephen Leather - The Long shot

He’d vowed never to return to the SAS Sterling Lines barracks and hadn’t even replied to the Regiment’s invitation to attend its fiftieth anniversary celebrations in 1991. His time with the SAS had been one of the most challenging, and exciting, periods of his life, but it had also changed him forever. It went above and beyond being a soldier: the SAS had taught him to kill, and part of that training had been a dehumanising programme which left him with a cold, hard place where his conscience used to be. It was only after he’d left the Regiment that he’d realised what he’d lost. What they’d taken away from him.

The daylight was starting to leach from the sky as he walked away from the station and he thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket. He’d taken the day off from the paintball arena, but he hadn’t made up his mind yet whether or not to work with the Colonel. There were things he had to get straight in his head first, and for that he needed someone to talk to. A friend. He kept his head down as he walked, but his feet took him unerringly to a pub he used to frequent, set in the middle of a row of brick cottages with leaded windows and old, warping oak doors. There were two barmaids pulling pints and wiping glasses, one of whom he recognised. Her name was Dolly and she served him with a smile but no hint of recognition, leaving Joker in no doubt as to how much he’d changed over the last few years.

He ordered a Famous Grouse, a double. Two young soldiers stood together at a video game in one corner of the bar, feeding it coins as they drank pints of lager. They had the crew-cuts and thick moustaches that marked them out as being from the Parachute Regiments, from where the SAS drew most of its recruits. It would also make them feel right at home in some of London’s rough trade gay bars. Joker could never understand why they allowed the Paras to stick with their macho style once they joined the ranks of the SAS. The officers insisted that the men refrained from using military plates on their cars and that they dressed as civilians when moving between operations, yet they were so easy to spot that any terrorist worth his salt would have no problem in targeting them, on or off duty.

Joker drained his glass and signalled for another. Dolly put a refill in front of him. “Don’t I know you?” she asked.

“I don’t think so,” he said, handing her a twenty-pound note. “Can you give me a bottle of that, to take away?”

She nodded, wrapped a bottle in a sheet of purple tissue paper and gave it to him with his change.

As Joker drank his second whisky, a woman appeared at his side and sat down on a bar stool. He saw her reflection in the mirror above the cash register: she was a bleached blonde with a washed-out complexion as if she’d spent too many years indoors. In the mirror she appeared to be about thirty-five years old but when Joker turned to look at her he saw that she was older. She was wearing a red blouse and a black skirt that was a fraction too tight. The two squaddies at the video game burst into laughter and Joker had the feeling that they were laughing at her. Relations between the SAS and the locals were strained at the best of times: the soldiers usually called them ‘pointyheads’ and treated them with contempt, while the local men accused the soldiers of stealing their women. The Saturday-night fights in the crowded bars of Hereford were legendary, as were the queues in the hospital emergency room afterwards.

The woman ordered a brandy and Coke and when she’d been served she raised her glass to Joker. “Down the hatch,” she said, and he smiled. She had the eager-to-please look of a scolded puppy.

“Cheers,” said Joker.

When she put the glass back on the bar it was smeared with lipstick. She nodded at the bottle in his pocket. “You need a hand to drink that?” she said. “I don’t live far from here.”

Joker felt a sudden wave of compassion for the woman. She looked as if she expected men to treat her badly and he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. “I can’t,” he said, “I’m visiting a friend and he’s a big drinker.”

Her face fell momentarily, then she smiled. “Enjoy yourself,” she said.

Joker drained his glass and left the warmth of the bar. He walked quickly, surprised at how much the temperature had dropped. He wondered if he was getting soft. The church was a brisk ten minutes walk away from the pub. It was built of grey stone with a slate roof and shielded from the road by a line of spreading chestnut trees. The wooden gate squeaked as Joker pushed it open and he walked slowly down the gravel path. He’d been to the church on more than a dozen occasions in his dress uniform: three times for weddings and the remainder for funerals. The churchyard was where the SAS buried its dead.

Joker followed the path around to the left of the church. The graves were immaculately maintained, the grass verges trimmed with military precision and there were fresh flowers in brass vases on many of the stone and marble slabs. As Joker’s feet crunched along the gravel, the graves he passed sparked off memories and he shuddered. Two of his friends had died in an ambush on the Irish border, another had perished in a car bomb in Germany. Mick Newmarch was the only one he’d seen die.

There was a fresh grave to the left, covered with bouquets of flowers which had begun to wither. The stone was clearly new and it bore the name of Pete Manyon. Joker stopped for a minute and looked at the cards that were still affixed to the floral tributes. A wife. Parents. A wreath in the form of the regimental crest.

The stone on Newmarch’s grave was brutal in its simplicity: it was a grey granite block into which had been carved the officer’s name, rank, date of birth and the date he’d died. That was it. No words of condolence, no prayers for his soul. Just the facts. When it came time for Joker to be buried six feet below the ground, that was all the epitaph he wanted. The grave was set back from the path and Joker walked across the short-cropped grass, unwrapping the bottle of Famous Grouse. He took off his pea jacket, dropped it down next to the stone and sat on it. “Evening, Mick,” he said.

He looked up at the darkening sky as he unscrewed the cap on the bottle. One or two of the brightest stars were already visible and it didn’t look as if it was going to rain.

“It’s been a while, Mick,” said Joker. “I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner.” He took a long, deep pull on the whisky and felt its warmth spread across his chest. He looked at the bleak stone monument. “Drink, Mick?” he asked. He poured a measure of the spirit in a slow trickle onto the lush grass and then took another mouthful himself.

Cole Howard picked up a copy of Electronics Monthly and glanced through it. He looked at his watch and pulled a face. He’d been kept waiting for fifteen minutes in his father-in-law’s office, yet he’d arrived right on time for the four o’clock appointment. There were times when Theodore Clayton could be an out-and-out bastard. Clayton’s secretary looked up from her word-processor as if she’d read his mind. “I’m sorry, Mr Howard, he’s still on his call. He knows you’re here.”

“Oh, I’m sure he does, Allison. I’m sure he does.”

He tried to read an article on a new Japanese microprocessor but his vocabulary wasn’t up to it. He tossed it back on the table and watched the tropical fish in the tank by the secretary’s desk. Brightly coloured fish weaved in and out of fronds of plants that seemed too green to be real and a stream of small bubbles dribbled up from a plastic galleon sitting on the gravel at the bottom.

At Howard’s feet was a brown leather briefcase. All it contained was the original Mitchell video. Howard could have carried the videocassette in his jacket pocket but he felt more confident entering his father-in-law’s office with a briefcase. It suggested status and authority, as did the dark grey suit he’d put on. Theodore Clayton always managed to make Howard feel as if he hadn’t washed behind his ears that morning and that he was about to be scolded for the oversight.