Lynda Plante - The Talisman

Edward now knew it was far worse than he had anticipated. The main terrorist group were amateurs who had been making attacks on post offices, telephone exchanges, television transmitters, tax offices and banks since the late seventies. They had also destroyed an office at the Academie in Brittany. The new faction had not started causing real damage until three years ago, when they had bombed an officers’ mess, two banks and a customs depot. The list made no sense, there was no logic to it. The only good thing from Evelyn’s point of view was that no one had been killed or seriously injured.

But the police had found enough ammunition and explosives at the farmhouse to give great cause for alarm. The terrorists’ every movement had been monitored by the police, who had had them under surveillance for six months. Initially prepared to wait and catch them red-handed, they changed their minds when they discovered that the group had bought vast amounts of explosive. They decided to move in before anyone got killed, and had raided the farmhouse. One of the ringleaders, Kurt Spanier, was determined, if he and his friends went down, to take their little stool pigeon with them. He had given the police a long statement implicating Evelyn as the financier behind the organization.

Edward was refused permission to see Evelyn. He was standing outside the high prison walls wondering how to trace Alex, when he saw him driving out of the prison. He shouted and waved, chased the car. His brother’s face was grey with worry, and he stared in panic at Edward for a moment, not recognizing him. Edward gasped for breath, ‘I’ve been trying to contact you all day, lemme in the bloody car... Hang on, I’ll pay off my cab.’

Alex opened the door and Edward, wheezing and coughing, squeezed in beside him. The cigar smoke made Alex feel sick, and he opened the window as he drove away from the threatening brick walls topped with barbed wire.

The visits were a nightmare for Alex. Every time he entered the prison he went through agonies. He washed himself obsessively after each visit, unable to get the stench of disinfectant and urine out of his nostrils. The acrid cigar smoke had a similar effect on him, and he kept gasping for air, unable to talk. Edward was totally unaware of the mental strain Alex was undergoing every time he visited Evelyn. Attempts at conversation drew nothing but blank silence.

Alex’s hotel room, though a double, was small. It was clean, but without any of the luxuries the two men had become used to. Alex splashed cold water on his face from the small handbasin, soaped and scrubbed his hands and nails. His brother’s questions, fired at him one after another, made him feel worse. Finally Edward blew his top, yelling, ‘For God’s sake, Alex, talk to me, talk to me.’

Edward’s presence filled the room along with his cigar smoke. He lay down, the single bed creaking beneath his weight.

Alex was washing his hands yet again, and Edward threw his up in despair. ‘You going to fucking talk this through with me or not? You tell me what you’ve got and I’ll say what I’ve sniffed out — isn’t there any room service in this dump?’

Alex loosened his tie and put his head into his hands. The headache still throbbed, but it was fading, the nausea subsiding. At last he spoke. ‘Any way you look at it, he’s going to get at the very least eight, they say more like ten years. The police were staking out the place, the farmhouse, for over six months. They watched him coming and going freely, so there’s nothing to that angle we can try. They have cheques I sent which were signed over to one of them — a German, the one they call Kurt Spanier. The stupid bastard was part of it whether we like it or not.’

Edward took off his thick overcoat and threw it on to the only chair in the room. It fell to the floor in a heap. ‘What about bribes, any joy in that area?’

‘That what you’re here for? What are you going to do, splash your money around? Grow up, money won’t get him off this one — have you seen the list of things they’ve been trying to blow up?’

‘Yeah, talk about arseholes... I dunno, but money gets everyone off everything, just that you’re too dumb to know it... I want to talk to the lawyers. I’ve got contacts in the Foreign Office, maybe we can work something out, some kind of deal. If you ask me, it would maybe do the boy some good to spend a year or two behind bars getting his arse kicked... You never gave him the thrashing he deserved over that Harrow business.’

‘Don’t you start telling me how I should have treated my son...’

‘He’s my son, and you know it.’

‘Wrong — you lost him when you kicked my wife out of your bed. Now why don’t you and your fat cigar get the hell out of here and leave me to try to sort out my son’s problems.’

‘Don’t be a fucking crass idiot. Your son, my son, what difference does it make? Stupid git gets himself into trouble, surely the two of us can put our heads together and come up with something to get him out...’

‘I’m doing just that, and I don’t need you... I don’t want you, nor does he — go on, get out!’

Edward took a massive wad of notes from his pocket and started to count them. ‘That’s exactly what I said to your wife when she came running round begging me to help. She had no idea where you were. Where have you been all these months, anyway? All hell’s going to break loose in the City — you know that, don’t you? So I’ve been cleaning up the back yard, so to speak, and keeping a very low profile. You know the Americans have started blabbing? Take one big guy down and the rest fall like a pack of cards. You know who they’ve got, don’t you? Well, if he can cough up millions in fines, he’s going to make sure he’s got a deal and he will name names... You hear what I’m saying, Alex?’

‘Right now I’m not interested in the backhanded deals you have always persisted in, all right? I will straighten everything out as usual, when I get back. Just get your bulk out of here and leave me alone.’

Edward showed no inclination to get off the bed. He plumped up the pillow, lay back on it. ‘Way I look at it, Alex, you are desperate to hold on to him as your son, because — and for this reason only — you know I want him.’

Alex flung open a window to clear the cigar smoke that billowed around his brother’s head. ‘Oh, yeah, what are you going to do? Offer me a deal, you get him off and he’s yours, is that it? You’re too late, you won’t ever have him...’

For a man his size, Edward moved incredibly fast, pinning his brother against the wall, pushing him so hard his head snapped back. ‘This is the second time I’ve had to do this, first time was with your bitch wife, you know what she’s worried about? That you won’t get your fucking title! That’s what she’s worried about, so just listen, you stupid bastard... I don’t care if he knows who I am, what I am. I’m here to get him out, even if it means using a rope and scaling the wall. All right? I know I lost him, I know he’s not “mine”, and I have to live with it, here, inside me...’

‘All right, all right, I’m sorry... I’m all strung up, it’s the prison, it gets to me.’

‘Yeah, well, it would... You got to admit you did a bloody poor job of bringing him up.’

Alex pushed his brother away, went to lie on the other single bed. Even when Edward wasn’t talking, his presence was an intrusion, and his heavy breathing was irritating Alex. He closed his eyes, sighed. ‘You’re right, maybe I did make a mess of bringing him up, but that was down to you. You destroyed everything I had going with him, did you know that? For a while I hated the poor kid, not because of what he had done, but because of what you had done. Barbara may be a bitch, but deep down inside that plastic body there is this guilt. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d been a girl, but your son? Have you any idea what it felt like to find that out? The way I held him, when he was born — I was there, and to find out he wasn’t... wasn’t... Ah, shit...’