Richard Wiseman - To Kill Or Be Killed

At reception Mason was his cheery best.

“Hi there, sandwiches for you apparently.” Mason said armed with his warmest smile.

“For me?” The girl asked warily.

“Yeah., you are due a break aren’t you?”

“Well yes, but I can’t eat it here and I don’t usually get them.”

Mason put on his very best smile and came round to the staff side of reception. He knew he didn’t have long, but so far all he looked like was an incompetent yet keen kitchen temp.

“Well I think it’s a treat for not being relieved for a while. I think they want you to eat it here.” He looked around for a staff access pass card and saw it on the desk to her right.

“Oh well it’s the usual disorganisation with staffing. Are you new?” The girl asked a little charmed by his smile and friendly demeanour.

“I’m a temp.”

Putting down the sandwiches in his right hand he stood behind her, placed her sandwiches on the desk with his left hand to her left and whilst her eyes watched it being placed and knowing her to be distracted he took the staff access pass card with its fob from the desk on her right and slipped it into his pocket.

“I’d better go. Enjoy.” Mason picked up the second plate and walked away.

“Could you get me a drink, some mineral water will do?”

“Sure.” Mason said and winked.

Mason made for the restaurant, looked back saw her head dip below the level of the desk to take a bite of the sandwich and he doubled back swiftly to the guest staircase and made his way to the rooms. Once upstairs he started to look for a suitable room. He knew he’d have to be quick.

Dover

6 p.m.

April 18th

David McKie’s train had taken nearly two hours to get to Dover, nearly half an hour longer than it usually took. There had been a security alert at Charing Cross station and the police, all of them armed, had been checking tickets and faces, making the boarding of the train a slow affair.

It had been a long, start stop journey from there and the train became less and less crowded as it got further south until only David and an old couple with suitcases, obviously headed for the ferry, were left in his carriage. The final run through the cliff tunnels had infused him with memories of home so strong that when the train emerged into the setting sunlight at Dover Priory Station he felt the satisfied journey’s end feeling all travellers encounter when so close to home. It grew uncomfortably stronger when the taxi pulled up outside his house in Markland Road. Having paid the taxi he saw Mary at the window and waved and when hr got to the door it opened in welcome.

“Oh I’ve been so scared. It’s good to have you home.” She said as she embraced him tightly.

He said nothing and let the smells of the house and its warm familiarity of embrace him as passionately as he embraced her. He drank in her familiar smell, Obsession perfume mingled with fabric conditioner and her herbal shampoo. He buried his nose in her blonde, untidy hair. He felt the bump against him and deliberately touched the safely covered womb protecting his unborn child.

“Where’s Conor?” He very suddenly said.

“He’s asleep. He knew you were coming home and he was so excited all day he fell asleep.”

“Something smells good.” David said to allay guilty thoughts of his son’s disappointment.

“It’s steak and kidney pudding. I made it myself.”

“Lovely. You’d better sit down. I’ll sort everything else out. I’ll just pop up and see Conor.”

David took his bag upstairs and put it in their room. He felt as if it had been an age from home. He went into the next room and saw his son curled up on a small bed with a small, light blue fluffy blanket covering him. The floor was strewn with toys; a fluffy Pooh Bear lay across a bright blue Thomas the Tank Engine toy and everywhere brightly coloured bricks lay at odd angles in strange piles and shapes.

He leant over and kissed his son’s warm forehead. The boy didn’t stir. David wiped a lone tear from his cheek. The sheer relief of his return washed over him. He thought of the families of the murdered men and he flushed with shame at his joy at being home. When he got to the door he looked back, sighed and for a moment was taken over by the strength of a resolution, a strong desire to be a protector. He knew it to be his job to be one of the people who protected families from men like Wheeler, Spencer and Stanton, though as he descended the stairs he wondered for how long.

Down stairs Mary was sitting back on pillows on the only chair she found comfortable. He went over and kneeling put his head in her lap. She stroked his head.

“I had to kill a man Mary.”

There was a pause and her hand stopped moving for a second or two then resumed.

“Better him than you Davey.”

He raised his head and she saw his eyes were awash with tears.

“I don’t know if it’s the job for me you know.”

“Oh sure it is. You weren’t just lucky. You’re a strong, fast and determined man, just like your father.”

“I could have been killed.” He said and she looked him in the eyes.

“You weren’t though. You’re tired and you’ve had a hard time and you’d not be a good man if you didn’t have feelings like that and I married a good man.” He went to speak, but she put her finger to his lips.

“Go have a wash and we’ll get the tea on. We can talk when you’ve had a rest. Jack Fulton phoned and said you’d need time and TLC for a day or two. He said you’d not be going back on duty rota until November. Now go wash. You’re home now.” She took her finger away kissed it and put it back to his lips.”

He stood up and left the room, stopping to turn and blow her a kiss. When he had gone she crossed herself looked to the ceiling mouthed a ‘thank you’ and wiped the gathering tears from her eyes.

Glasgow

6 p.m.

April 18th

It was a pleasant drive across to Ardrossan on the Atlantic coast. Clarky owned an ex army nineteen eighty- four Land Rover series three, used in Northern Ireland, but with the ‘mesh’ protection removed. It still had the ‘high velocity’ HV protection of the armoured wind shield. Clarky was very proud of it, though to make it less obtrusive he had re-sprayed it dark blue.

They had left Motherwell at four thirty in the afternoon. The A72 took them out of red brick and house crowded Motherwell onto the A71 and they traversed Scotland westwards into the pretty green fields of Ayrshire. The Ayrshire dairy cows scattered amongst the greenery flashed a camouflage pattern across Stanton’s eyes as a steady fifty miles an hour took the two men in mutual silence into Kilmarnock.

Cold as it was getting in the pre night cooling Stanton felt the warmth and comfort of the Landy’s heaters and felt cocooned behind the strong metal and the bullet proof glass. Ahead of him were some unknown dangers, the usual companions in his otherwise single existence, and several times he looked at Clarky thinking of their Legion days, the brutal punishments and harsh training which had hardened their bodies and the bloody deeds that had hardened their minds. For a moment warm and calm he reflected that it might be time to quit, but at just over an hour they entered the outskirts of Ardrossan and Stanton felt his destiny inexorable draw him back into the ‘game’.

As Clarky pulled up in the Ardrossan town railway station car park he turned to his friend.

“Here we are. The marina is up that way.” Clarky pointed up Prince’s Street.

The moment was pregnant with unspoken thoughts. Neither man wanted to impose his thoughts on the other, but both sensed the other’s fears.