Gerald Seymour - The Untouchable

He loosened her hand.

'Corruption's the worst, right? You're all looking at each other, all tainted by suspicion. I suppose men come in and search the files, go through all your assessments, get the computers to hack into your bank accounts, and look at what car you're driving, what your mortgage or your rent is, pry into your lives.

There's no answer to it, is there? Can't get rid of the smell. Trust's gone… I'm sorry, Joey, believe me. I don't know what else I can say… '

She knew the way, from what he'd told her – no confidences but the basics – that the investigation had involved the National Crime Squad, the National Criminal Intelligence Service and, of course, the Crown Prosecution Service, and, the National Investigation Service.

Ferocity in her voice. 'Don't let anyone ever say it was you… Don't let anyone ever say the bastard bought you, or frightened you.'

She pushed herself up from the bed, stamped to the door, switched on the light, then went back across the room to the window where she ripped the curtains shut. She seemed to smack her hands together as if it were time to start afresh. She had her back to him as she crouched on the carpet and started to pull together the scattered papers and pack them away, haphazardly, any old order, into the file boxes, then dropped the lot of them beside the door. He didn't protest, had turned to face the wall. She went to the cupboard under the sink, retrieved a bin bag and stuffed the takeaway tinfoil boxes into it. She swept up the bottles and dumped them, too, into the bag.

The mugs went into the sink. The clothes from the floor, and the shoes, she threw headlong into the back of the wardrobe. She rinsed the mugs and his knife and fork, then banged them down on the draining-board. She took the vacuum cleaner out of the cupboard beside the shelf on which his crockery was stacked, and ran it over the carpet, searching for rice grains, dust, purging the room. She went to the bed, caught at his T-shirt and spilled him off it, onto the floor. She made the bed, smacked the creases out of the blankets, sheets and pillows, then turned to face the picture on the wall. She reached up to it and carefully, so that Violet's wallpaper would not be damaged, freed it from the floral pattern. She held it in her hands and her fingers quivered.

'That bastard doesn't own you, Joey,' she hissed.

'You leave him there and the bastard dominates you, watches over you. Don't let him, Joey, or he'll destroy you. He may think, the fucking bastard, that he can buy anybody, frighten anybody – but not you, Joey.

He's a piece of shit.'

She was crying as she tore the picture into pieces and flung them into the rubbish bag.

'How is it that people like that can have such power?'

The tears streamed down her face. She shrugged into her coat. The telephone was ringing in the hall downstairs. She closed the door after her and stumbled down the stairs with the rubbish bag.

Joey's landlady, Violet, was speaking into the phone. 'His workplace, you say.. Right, I'll go and get him. It's two flights of stairs, so it'll be a moment.'

She should have done it herself, should have gone back up the stairs and saved the elderly lady the trudge, but she could not face the doom atmosphere of his room again. She went out into the street and dropped the bin bag into the dustbin. But she knew that the man's power remained in the room with Joey.

He sauntered a pace behind Atkins, his armourer. For a man hard to surprise it was an eye-opening experience. Mister had never before been to anything like the Defence Systems and Equipment International Exhibition. Outside, the spring morning tipped with rain. Atkins had picked him up at a service station on the north side of the motorway ringing London and brought him down in the four-wheel drive. They'd been clogged in traffic as they'd approached the site and had crawled past demonstrators at the gate, hemmed in by a police cordon, as they held up placards denouncing the 'Death Supermarket'. That he was there, that the arrangements had been put in place, was a reflection of his confidence in the Eagle's assurance that he would walk from the Old Bailey. He seldom spoke, but he listened. His armourer knew enough to initiate conversations that he thought Mister would be interested to hear, but not to involve or introduce him.

They went down the aisles between stands that displayed the pride of military hardware. Everything was on show from tanks and armoured cars to titanium-plated aircraft cockpits, rotating helicopter mounts for rapid-firing triple-barrel machine-guns, protective clothing for troops in a chemical-warfare environment, land-, air- and sea-launched missiles.

At the main door, as their entry passes were processed, Atkins had asked, 'What in particular, Mister?'

'Just what I'm getting,' had been the laconic reply.

'In how long?'

'No hurry.'

In the past he had taken the Princess to the Ideal Home Exhibition, and the Motor Show. Not a lot of difference. From behind the stands, salesmen, who hooked on to any interest, darted out and tried to pressure drinks into hands. But they stayed dry: Atkins knew enough of Mister to know that alcohol was frowned on. Mister had made a major financial commitment to what he was getting, but he regarded it as necessary if the deal were to go through – the deal had been Cruncher's concept.

It was all about 'peace', Mister noted. Peace-keeping, peace enforcement, peace maintenance were the slogans of the day. He didn't hear the word kill, or read it. He hung back when Atkins met a general he'd served under, and who knew his father.

'Hello, hello, how are things going, now that you're out?'

'Struggling along, sir, but not too bad, sir, can't complain – it's an eye-opener, sir, but I haven't seen a bayonet.'

'It's all so damned sophisticated. Easy to forget that fighting is done by men. The better the equipment you give your men, the bigger the chance that it'll crash. If it crashes he's lost. In real combat it's man against man – but all the foreign people want is the best, so they can drool over it and hope to God they never have to use it. Must be getting along. Jolly good to see you… '

They came to a mock-up of a 'frontier post' where the British army were 'fighting for peace'. He looked over the Land-Rover with the machine-gun mounted, a sniper in a gillie suit, and a mortar team. In front of him were a cluster of tiny Asians, Chinese and Thais, and towering over them were their escort officers.

They were looking down. Mister's eyes ducked, and Atkins eased the small-built men a little to the side, did it with care so that no offence was given. Prone on the ground in front of the 'frontier post' were two camouflaged soldiers who made a tableau with a squat, thuggish piece of gear mounted on a shallow tripod. The dull light reflected from the launcher's lens. A sergeant was telling the Asians the qualities of the anti-tank weapon system: '… destroys tanks, helicopters and bunkers. Can fire up to three per minute. Aim point is hit point, and it's effective up to 2,500 yards. You can change target during the missile's flight, and because of its low-launch velocity the chance of detection and counter-measures is minimal. It has a double-charge warhead for penetration, packs a hell of a punch…'

Mister's question was whispered: 'Is that what I'm getting?'

'The medium-range Trigat – MR Trigat – that's what you're getting. Sorry, that's what you've got. It's an excellent weapon, Mister, the best of its kind.'

He had absorbed everything he had heard. En route to Bosnia was a weapon that could not be afforded locally, that was sophisticated and would be a prized symbol of superiority. On one of his rare visits to Brixton, Cruncher had told him that he should take with him gear that would turn heads. The gear was an offering, a gift – so Cruncher had explained it – to convince doubters that Mister was top league. When Mister came, bearing gifts, he would be listened to. He was going to ride on the back of the MR Trigat. It was heavy stuff, new to anything he had had before.