Хилари Боннер - No Reason To Die

Kelly tried to keep the astonishment off his face. He’d had no idea that his son held such right-wing views, for a start.

‘Anyway, Gerry was promoted to half colonel and eventually went back to the Devonshires as CO, and I became a sort of freelance military consultant. The world’s full of people who want my skills.’

Nick grinned again. Kelly thought it looked like a leer.

‘So, when this spot of trouble they had at Hangridge came to the boil, it was natural enough for Gerry to turn to me,’ Nick went on. ‘He told me there was this guy, who’d been employed by the families — who could finger him, someone who’d seen him when he’d been looking for a squaddie who was out to cause trouble because of what he thought he knew—’

Kelly interrupted. ‘Alan Connelly?’

Nick nodded. ‘Yeah, that was his name. Gerry just said he thought this man may have recognised him, and he needed taking out.’

Kelly was mesmerised. So Parker-Brown had remembered him from their brief confrontation in The Wild Dog. And he had not given himself away, by even a blink, that day at Hangridge. Karen had been right. Parker-Brown certainly was a smooth operator and one hell of an actor.

‘It didn’t seem like any big deal,’ Nick continued.

Kelly could hardly believe his ears.

‘Just a job. That’s all. And I had no idea who I was taking out. We work on the basis of need to know, you see. I didn’t need to know. Gerry set it up and just told me the instructions you’d been given, to walk up and down Babbacombe beach at midnight, until you were approached. You got a phone call, didn’t you, an anonymous call?’

Kelly nodded.

‘That was Gerry. He’s quite an actor.’

‘I know,’ said Kelly flatly.

‘Well, I hightailed it down to Torquay and out to Babbacombe. Like I said, Gerry had no idea, of course, that I was your son. And it didn’t occur to me to think you might be involved. I suppose it should have done in a way, with your history. But with Moira just having died and everything — well, it simply didn’t occur to me. Not until you managed to break away from me a bit — I guess that was the first time I underestimated you — and started yelling your head off. I recognised your voice, didn’t I? I recognised the sound of your voice. I was gobsmacked. Absolutely gobsmacked. I shone the torch in your face to make sure, and then, well, I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t kill you. Not my own father. Not you. I love you, Dad.’

Nick looked across at him appealingly. Kelly felt absolutely nothing. He knew that Nick loved him, had loved him since they had become so joyfully reconciled a few years previously, in spite of the fact that Kelly had been such a neglectful father. Kelly had always thought it a miracle that Nick had still been prepared to accept him, and had never failed to be deeply moved when Nick expressed his love for him. Until now, he thought grimly.

‘So, you knocked me senseless, instead,’ said Kelly flatly.

‘What else could I do? I had to be able to make a clean getaway. I couldn’t let you find out that it was me. My torch had a rubber casing, so I knew that if I chose the spot carefully, I should be able to stun you without doing any lasting harm.’

‘So you tried to knock me out carefully, is that it?’

‘Well, that’s one way of putting it, I suppose.’

It was exactly what Kelly had thought at the time, of course.

‘And then you rang me up in the early hours of the morning with some spurious excuse, in order to make sure that you had been careful enough.’

‘Well, yes, I suppose so. I watched from the woods too. I saw you get in your car and drive away. What were you doing in that bloody great tank of a Volvo anyway? If you’d been driving the MG, I’d never have gone near you. I’d have known it was you.’

‘The exhaust went.’

‘Ah, just for a change, eh?’

Nick understood about MGs. Kelly wasn’t interested.

‘But if it hadn’t been me, you would have killed whoever happened to be walking up and down that beach without question?’ he persisted. ‘Is that it?’

‘Well yes. I suppose it is. But you don’t understand, Dad. Really, you don’t. There was good reason, you see...’

‘Try me, Nick. Tell me your good reason for being prepared to strike down and kill a quite possibly innocent stranger, just because your former squadron leader asked you to?’

‘Look, Dad, Gerry and I were in Northern Ireland together. And we both felt extremely strongly about what was happening over there. You have to see it to believe it, Dad...’

‘I saw it, Nick, you know that,’ said Kelly.

‘No, Dad. Not the way we did. And the IRA is like any other organisation. At the core of the worst atrocities, there is an extremist minority. Most of them call themselves the Real IRA, nowadays, whatever that means. Now we allegedly have peace, but there are all too many bastards who don’t even want it. Gerry, well — when things needed sorting Gerry was prepared to go that bit further than most, even within the SAS. His father had been an NCO in the Devonshires and had died in Northern Ireland. Did you know that?’

Kelly shook his head. He neither knew nor cared, as it happened.

‘He didn’t give a shit, actually, Gerry. When balls were handed out, Gerry got given a pair the size of fucking footballs.’

Kelly, who could see the pride in Nick, even under these circumstances, was becoming more and more starkly aware of just how deep into some other murky world his only son had become immersed. He said nothing.

‘We had this man over there, undercover. His information was dynamite. Always. He was an Irishman, but he was British army through and through. Trained in the Marines. He spent years there undercover. Gerry and I, well, we ran him. The man was amazing. A real hero. Last year they had to get him out, his cover was about to be blown. Gerry was determined to find a new life for him. He got him into the Devonshires, made up some story for him, gave him a new name and a whole new phoney background. You know what they say, if you want to hide a lump of coal, then put it in a coal bunker with lots of other lumps of coal. The Irishman was a soldier. So they slotted him into the Devonshires and made him a sergeant, and Gerry took him under his wing. But, well, he was never an easy man to handle. All that time undercover. It had done something to him. To his head. He was a bit of a monster with women, it’s true.’

Kelly found himself thinking back to when he had been sitting in Parker-Brown’s office at Hangridge. He had a small bet with himself that it had been the Irishman who had opened the door and then quickly closed it again after Parker-Brown had shaken his hand in warning.

‘So he was sent to a barracks where vulnerable young women were being trained? Brilliant.’

‘Well, anyway. Apparently, he’d come on strong to this girl—’

‘Which girl?’

‘Her name was Jocelyn Slade.’

‘Just strong?’

‘Well, she claimed he’d raped her.’

‘Oh, dear God, Nick.’

‘Look, the Irishman had lived too long under different rules.’

‘Oh, yes. I know the type. And he’d think young women soldiers were fair game, of course.’

‘I don’t know. I don’t really know what happened. Just that it all snowballed. Jocelyn Slade had a boyfriend, didn’t she? She’d told him all about it.’

‘Craig Foster?’

‘Yes. Well, Gerry tried to calm it all down, but Slade and Foster were apparently telling people that they were going to go to the newspapers. Eventually, the Irishman sorted it himself. Slade and Foster. A suicide and a tragic accident. Unfortunately, the other sentry — what was his name?’

‘Gates, James Gates.’