Jack Higgins - Rough Justice

The Prime Minister smiled. ‘Give her my love, Harry, and get going. It’ll be curtain up before you know it.’

Curtain up was seven thirty and he arrived at the stage door at ten past seven to find Marcus, the ancient doorman, at his desk reading the Standard . Marcus was delighted to see him.

‘Good God, Major, she’ll be thrilled. And your sister’s with her, Lady Starling. Your wife’s been prepping an understudy. They thought you was still in Kosovo. Anthony Vere broke a bone in his right foot, so you’ve got Colin Carlton. He’s a little young for the part, but them Madame looks ten years younger than she is.’

‘Tell her that and you’ll have a friend for life.’

‘You haven’t got long, sir. Front row, dress circle. House seats. I got them myself.’

Miller was at the door of his wife’s dressing room in seconds, knocked and entered and was greeted with enormous excitement. His wife had her stage make-up beautifully applied, her red hair superb, and was being zipped up in her dress by his sister Monica, who looked lovely, as usual, her blonde hair beautifully cut, looking younger than her own forty years.

They were thrilled, Olivia actually crying a little. ‘Damn you, Harry, you’re ruining my make-up. I didn’t expect you’d make it. You usually don’t.’

They kissed gently and his sister said, ‘Come on, move it. We won’t even have time for a drink at the bar.’

He kissed her on the forehead. ‘Never mind, we’ll make up for it afterwards. You’re staying over at Dover Street, I hope?’

‘Of course.’

Monica had rooms at the University in Cambridge, but the London townhouse had been the family home since Victorian times. It was close to South Audley Street, convenient to the Dorchester Hotel, Park Lane and Hyde Park, and it was spacious enough for her to have her own suite. She also had shared use of Stokely Hall in the Kent countryside where Aunt Mary led a gentle life, supported by Sarah Grant, the housekeeper, and her husband, Fergus, who chauffeured the old Rolls and turned his hand to most things. They lived in the lodge and a Mrs Trumper came in from the village to cook.

In a strange way, all this was going through Miller’s mind as he and Monica made tracks for the dress circle. It was a reaction to what had happened, the violence of Kosovo, the prospect of a weekend in the peace of the countryside in the company of loved ones. He and Olivia had no children, Monica had no children, and dear old Aunt Mary would have been totally alone without them all. As he and Monica settled into their seats, he felt relaxed and happy, back with the close-knit family members who were so important. Love, kindness, concern – these were the people dearest to him in his life and yet totally unaware of the dark secrets, the death business behind his apparently quiet service in the Intelligence Corps.

So many times over the years, family friends had congratulated him on his desk job with Intelligence. He had only two medals to show for eighteen years in the Army: the South Atlantic ribbon for the Falklands Campaign and the Campaign Medal for Northern Ireland that all soldiers who’d served there received. It was ironic when you thought of River Street in Derry, the four dead Provos, and the many similar occasions for Unit 16, and yet the two people closest to him, his sister and his wife, didn’t have even the slightest hint of that part of his life. He’d never go away for more than a week at a time and was always supposed to be at Catterick, Salisbury Plain, Sandhurst or Germany, somewhere like that.

He took a deep breath, squeezed Monica’s hand, the music started to play and then the lights dimmed and the curtains parted. It was the old, wonderful excitement, just what he needed, and then his wife entered stage-left looking fantastic, the woman with whom he had fallen hopelessly in love on their first meeting so many years before, and his heart lifted.

The performance was a triumph, earning four curtain calls; young Carlton was more than adequate and Olivia superb. She’d booked a late dinner at a favourite French bistro in Shepherd Market, and the three of them, she and Miller and Monica, thoroughly indulged themselves, sharing a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne.

‘Oh, I’m very pleased with myself,’ Olivia announced.

‘And, you’ve got tomorrow to look forward to,’ Monica told her. ‘Saturday night and a full house.’

‘I’ve been thinking,’ Miller put in. ‘I’ll arrange a car from the Cabinet Office. After the show tomorrow, we’ll go straight down to Stokely, the three of us. Chill out on Sunday, then come back for Monday evening’s performance.’

‘Oh, you two lovebirds don’t want me around,’ Monica told them. ‘I’ll stay the night at Dover Street and go back to Cambridge tomorrow.’

‘Nonsense,’ Olivia said, ‘It’ll be nice to be together for a change, and Aunt Mary will be thrilled.’ She put her hand on Monica’s. ‘Just to be together. It’s so important. And imagine. We’ve actually got him to ourselves for a change. You and I can go shopping tomorrow.’

She kissed her husband on the cheek and Monica said, ‘I bumped into Charley Faversham at a function last week, Harry. He called you the Prime Minister’s Rottweiler and asked after you. I said I understood you were visiting Kosovo. He was there during the war covering it for The Times when the Serbs were killing all those Muslims. He said it was as bad as anything he’d ever seen in all his years as a war correspondent. It’s different now, I suppose?’

‘Completely,’ Miller told her. ‘And Olivia’s right. You must come down to Stokely with us. After all, there is no one in this life I am more indebted to than the sister who argued and begged me all those years ago to take her down to Chichester Festival Theatre to see Chekhov’s A Month in the Country . As you well know, I was never a Chekhov person until the girl from Boston walked in through the French windows.’ He reached for Olivia’s right hand and kissed it. ‘And after that, nothing in my life was ever the same.’

She glowed as she squeezed his hand. ‘I know, darling, same for me.’

Monica laughed. ‘I used to despair of him. Women just didn’t seem to be part of his agenda.’

‘Well, I was hardly exciting enough, not Household Cavalry or Three Para, no red beret and a row of medals. Pretty staid, a Whitehall warrior. No real soldiering, I’ve heard that mentioned enough.’

‘And thank God for it,’ Olivia told him. ‘Let’s have the bill and go home.’

Afterwards at Dover Street after they’d retired, he and Olivia made love very quickly, genuine passion still there. Not much was said, but the joy was there so strongly. Afterwards, she fell asleep very quickly and he lay there listening to her gentle breathing, unable to sleep himself, and finally slipped from the bed, found his dressing gown and went downstairs.

The sitting room was his favourite room in the entire house. He didn’t need to switch on the lights because there was enough drifting in from the street outside. It was raining, the occasional car swishing by, and he went to the drinks cabinet, poured himself a very large Scotch and did something he only did at times of stress. He opened a silver cigarette box and lit a Benson & Hedges. It was Kosovo, of course, and what had happened, and it made him think back four years to what had got him out of the Army.

The lies, the pretence, the deceit of it all, had been giving him a problem. He was two people: the man his wife and sister thought he was, and the dealer in death and secrets. A new dimension had entered his life, a new kind of terror, just when things were looking hopeful in Northern Ireland. It was called Muslim fundamentalism. It had become apparent to him that this was where his future would unfold and the prospect filled him with a kind of despair, because he didn’t want to be involved.