Simon Kernick - Severed

'I want you too,' I say, but I'm no longer seeing her. In my mind's eye, I'm seeing Leah dying, and I wonder, with a sense of panic, whether this image will appear for the rest of my days whenever I'm intimate with another woman. I look Alannah in the eye. 'But I can't do this.'

She seems surprised, and I'm guessing rejection isn't something she's used to. She lets go of my hand, and it drops to my side.

'I'm sorry,' I tell her, feeling vaguely embarrassed.

'What's wrong? Are you OK?'

I turn away from her gaze. 'I'm fine. It's just that there's someone else, that's all.'

'Oh,' she says. 'OK. I'm sorry, I didn't realize.'

'It's all right. Don't worry about it. I got caught up in things myself.'

Alannah walks round to the other side of the double bed and pulls a fresh pack of cigarettes from an open carton on the floor. She lights one and turns my way.

'You're something of an enigma, Mr Tyler,' she tells me. 'In my experience, faithful, romantic men are rare. Especially those who operate on the wrong side of the law.'

'Someone's got to be the standard bearer for fidelity,' I tell her with a small smile.

She manages an even smaller one in return and sits down on the bed, taking a drag on the cigarette and blowing out a thin line of smoke towards the cracked, nicotine-stained ceiling. Outside the window, another commuter train comes rattling past.

I lean down and pick up my shirt from the floor, and she asks me where I got my scars.

'It's a long story,' I answer.

'Are you in a hurry to go anywhere?'

At some point soon I'm going to have to pay a visit to Eddie Cosick, but I'm tired, and it's been a long day. I need to rest. 'Not particularly,' I answer, pulling the shirt back on.

'Then why don't you tell me it? Get the wine from downstairs and come and sit with me.' She gives me a coy look. 'I won't bite. I promise.'

It's a foolish move, I know, but the bed looks a lot more comfortable than the chair with the springless springs in her living room, so I do as she asks, returning with the glasses and handing one to her.

'Cheers,' she says, giving my glass a little clink.

'Cheers,' I answer, making myself comfortable on the bed, conscious of her closeness.

'It's a pity we had to meet under such circumstances.'

I'm thinking it's a pity we had to meet at all, but I don't say anything. She asks me once again about the scars, and I tell her the story of the day my APC was bombed in South Armagh. Despite what I said, it doesn't take long at all, because I still don't like talking about it. It may have been ten years ago, but the memories remain as raw as ever. I'm wondering whether in the future it'll be the same with the memories of today.

Alannah listens in silence, and when I'm finished she exhales loudly. 'That's some tale. And was it the end of your career in the army?'

'No, they couldn't get rid of me that easily. I was in hospital for three weeks, and on sick leave for eight weeks after that, but I went back and stayed for another six years.'

'Why?'

'Because I wasn't sure what else to do, I suppose. But it was never really the same after that. You know, I'd lost two friends dead, and then I lost a lot of others.'

'Really? Were you bombed again?'

'No. In a way, it was worse than that.'

She leans forward on one elbow, looking enthralled. 'Tell me about it.'

I feel a flicker of concern, knowing I shouldn't be letting on too much about myself. But she already knows my name, and one of my tales about service in Northern Ireland, so I conclude that there doesn't seem much harm in adding another to the mix.

'Well, the way we were ambushed caused a lot of anger in the unit,' I explain. 'The thing is, Northern Ireland was a really frustrating place to serve. You knew who the enemy were. You knew them by name – the gunmen, the bombers, all of them – but there was nothing you could do about it.'

She looks puzzled. 'What do you mean?'

'I mean, it wasn't like a proper war, and that was the problem. Our regiment, the Paras, were trained as shock troops. We were meant to fight in proper wars, but Northern Ireland wasn't like that. There, we were just surrogate police officers. It didn't matter if you knew someone was IRA, you had to wait until they actually tried to kill you before you could fight back; and even then, because they used roadside bombs and snipers, you never really got the chance actually to take them on. So, when the guys from our unit heard that the RUC knew the identities of the people who'd attacked us but didn't have enough evidence to bring charges, everything just spilled over.

'There was a pub about half a mile away from where the bomb went off which was a well-known haunt for IRA sympathizers, and the bomber was one of the regulars. So one night not long afterwards, the remaining members of our unit led by our OC, Major Ryan, raided the place. It was meant to be an official operation to gather evidence about IRA activities, but the whole thing degenerated into a brawl. I don't know how it started. I think one of the customers started getting really irate, demanding to know on what grounds the place was being searched – that sort of thing. Apparently, he got hit in the face with a rifle butt, and then everything just kicked off. I think a lot of the guys in the unit had been looking for just this sort of excuse to come down hard, but the problem was they came down too hard, and they started laying into everyone, including the man they reckoned was the bomber. From what I heard, they spread-eagled him face down on the floor of the pub, with one man sitting on his legs, another on his back, and a man holding each of his arms, and then smashed his fingers one by one with their rifle butts. Then they took it in turns to stamp on his hands until they were pretty sure everything was broken, before picking him up and chucking him over the bar and into all the spirit bottles.

'Before they left, they warned their victims not to say anything, otherwise they'd be back, but something like that was never going to stay quiet. If nothing else, it was a tremendous propaganda coup for the IRA: civilians beaten and savaged by the Paras as they enjoyed an evening out. Apparently, four or five people required hospital treatment, with the bomber the most seriously injured. In no time this huge political firestorm broke out, and the barracks were swarming with military police and army investigators. The whole unit was suspended from duty, and a major inquiry began to root out those responsible.

'All this time, I was in a hospital bed on the mainland. The first I heard about what happened was on the news. It wasn't the lead story, thank God, but it was big news, and they kept it going for a week. In the end, five guys from the unit got court-martialled, and they all ended up serving long prison sentences. They were all people I knew well. Friends of mine. No-one from the other side ever got charged with the attack on our patrol. I'll leave it to you to decide whether or not justice was done, but like I said, serving in the army was never quite the same after that.'

'And what's happened to those five men now?'

Once again, Maxwell and Spann, the bodyguards apparently killed by the Vampire in a Paris hotel room, spring to mind. 'Two of them are dead. The others have just got on with their lives. We don't really keep in touch any more.'

'So you're not working on behalf of any of them today, then?'

'Why would I be?' I ask, wondering suddenly why she's asking such probing questions.

'No particular reason,' she answers with a shrug. 'You just said you were hired by someone to deliver the briefcase to Marco. Since you're an ex-soldier, I thought you might work with your former colleagues. How did you find Marco's flat today, by the way? Because it's not registered in his name.'