Honour Bound (13 page)

-22-

The
facade of the Victorian building, one of twelve in the same row, not far from
the Haymarket in central London, was so bright and clean, a
passerby
could have been excused for thinking the builders had just left. A dozen
polished steps with a brass handrail fixed to the wall at either side, led up
from the street to a wide, imposing entrance door. Norton took the steps two at
a time and pressed the pearl button in the centre of an ornate plate that
informed him 'GERRARDS' was a
members
only club.

The
door swung open almost at once to reveal a short stocky man who had to look up
to look down his large aquiline nose. The nose plus a tight black suit and
white shirt gave the man a faintly ridiculous look. Rather like a deformed
penguin, Norton thought, and smiled inwardly.

"Yes,"
asked the doorman, who by his tone obviously thought that Norton, dressed in a
pair of jeans, sweatshirt and a leather jacket, had called at the wrong
address.

"I
have an appointment with Vance Talbot," Norton said, "
he
will be expecting me."

The
doorman took a further look at Norton, eyeing him up and down, as if to stamp
his features into his memory for future reference, "If you would care to
step this way, sir."

The
man moved to one side to allow Norton to enter the cool reception area.
"If you would care to take a seat, I will only be a moment."

He
disappeared up a winding staircase. Norton sat and began thumbing through a
hunting magazine, aware of the receptionist tapping the keys of a computer
hidden below the level of a sweeping desk, and occasionally throwing him a
glance as if to make sure he was behaving himself.

When
the clean up squad arrived at
Creasy's
, Norton had
been handed a sealed envelope. The message had been from Talbot with the time
and place for a meeting. No mention of why, just that he should endeavour to be
there. He had spent the time between getting home and the meeting by catching
up on his sleep. A hot shower had washed the aches from his limbs caused by the
hours of relative inactivity, and now he felt fresh and ready to face whatever
it was that Talbot was going to drop in his lap.

The
doorman's one moment, had lapsed into five minutes before he reappeared.
"You may follow me sir," he said.

Norton
followed in silence up the wide portrait lined staircase, and into a large
dusky room.

"Mr.
Talbot is in the far corner sir." He indicated which far corner with a
slight wave of his hand before disappearing through the door, no doubt to lay
in wait for the next caller.

The
first thing he noted was the lack of windows, which he found mildly surprising
for a room of its size. The only light came from a small army of gold plated
figurines, each one set in a different pose and resting in an alcove, a number
of which were spaced at regular intervals around the walls. The light, such as
it was, that strained from the low wattage bulb that each figure carried, was
reduced even further by dark green
aventurine
shades.

He
walked past several ancient tables, each one supporting a solid brass ashtray
and matching coasters. All of the tables, as far as he could see in the
half-light, were surrounded by equally ancient, well used leather chairs. The
room was virtually devoid of life and as quiet as a library. The only noise was
the soothing tick-
tock
of a grandfather clock
standing upright and proud against one wall, like an old wooden soldier on
eternal guard duty. One man sat on his own reading a financial supplement,
paying no attention to the newcomer, while a plume of smoke rising above the
top of a chair with its back to him indicated a second patron.

He
found Talbot sitting in a booth formed by a corner of the room, hidden from
general view by high wing-backed armchairs.

"Hello
Sam," he said and folded up the newspaper he had been reading. He laid it
on the seat beside him and waved his hand at an armchair. "Take a seat.
Good job this morning."

Norton
nodded and sank into the leathery comfort. The hide sighing and sinking as it
accepted his weight.

"Willie's
tip paid dividends," Talbot said, "two hundred and fifty kilos of
explosives, a load of detonators and timers, a few MP5’s and a pile of ammo.
Unfortunately, the whole business was a front. The Yard's anti terrorist boys
tried to trace the owners and drew a blank. Fictitious names and addresses for
both of them, and unfortunately no one left to question."

Both
men sat in silence for a short while, pondering the morning’s events.

After
a quick glance around the room Norton broke the silence, "You haven't come
here to die have you?"

"No."
Talbot answered with a grin. "This room, believe it or not, is very secure
it's swept for bugs every two hours. It's used for informal meetings that
members don't want overheard. You wouldn't believe some of the deals that have
been struck in here."

He
leaned forward and pressed a button on the underside of the table. "I'll
get you a drink and then we'll have a chat."

Moments
later a white suited waiter appeared and Talbot ordered a brandy for Norton and
a Scotch for himself. As soon as the waiter disappeared, he settled back into
his chair.

"We'll
wait for the drinks to come," he said, "before I tell you why you're
here. Oh, I'd better warn you, Jayne has been on at me to get you round for
dinner. I think she's got another young lady lined up, lambs to the slaughter
and all that."

Norton
mirrored Talbot's grin. He'd been invited to their home on many occasions for
dinner and a chat, and of late, Jayne had invited one of her friends along to
make up a 'cosy foursome' as she liked to call it. Talbot called it
matchmaking. Norton called it fun.

It
had not always been so good though. He recalled his first meeting with
Jayne,
it was one he would never forget. It had been some
years before when Vance was still on live-ops and Jayne found out he had a new
partner. She had done all in her power to get Vance to invite him to dinner.
Believing herself to be a good judge of character, she was interested to see
what type of man her husband was working with. She had pooh-poohed his
suggestion that Norton was not the type to merrily trot along to a dinner
party, and questioned him intensively, delving and prodding until she found out
as much as she could without actually meeting him.

Norton,
she discovered, had turned into a loner after his wife had died. Two days
before he returned to England from active service in the Gulf, Christine, his
wife of three years, had been killed in a car accident. She had been organising
a welcome home party. She was on her way back to their apartment, her car laden
with presents and last minute items, when it was hit from behind by a lorry
travelling far too fast in driving rain. She had died, without regaining
consciousness at about the same time as his flight touched down safely on the
runway. He had taken a long time to get over the shock and pain of losing her,
and then had thrown all his efforts into his profession, not really giving much
thought to anything else. His own accident had again changed the course of his
life, steering him from the military into the Anti Terrorist Unit. His work
within the Unit had also been his personal life until he had finally accepted
Jayne's invitation for dinner.

That
evening was to change Norton's life yet again. It started very slowly. Norton
had felt nervous, an alien feeling that made him uncomfortable, like a teenager
embarking on his first date. The meal was eaten with polite conversation
passing back and forth and with Norton
subtly,
and
sometimes not so subtly, changing the subject when asked about his past. After
the meal, they adjourned to the sitting room for drinks. The conversation took
the same direction as it had over the meal, Norton willing to talk about
anything but himself. That struck her as odd until it suddenly came to her what
was wrong. She made up her mind. What she was about to do could go one way or
the other. She sent Vance on an errand, who knew by her tone she wanted him out
of the room for a while, so he smiled and left. Jayne sat next to Norton on the
settee and simply said, "Tell me about your wife."

By
the look on his face, she thought he was going to get up and leave, that was
one way, but he looked at her, her face strong and understanding, willing to
listen. His eyes filled with tears that slowly overflowed and rolled down his
face. This was the other way.

She
held his hands while he spilled the grief bottled inside since Christine had
died. She listened, not trying to console, not interrupting, but hearing it
all, letting the grief pour from his heart where it had been held for so long.

He
was an only
child,
his mother had died shortly after
giving birth. His father, also a soldier had been killed by a sniper in West
Belfast. After his fathers death he’d had nowhere to go, so he joined the Army,
the only family he knew. He had met Christine in Germany while she was on his
base working for a civil engineering company. Their romance blossomed and they
became inseparable. To the delight of their friends and Christine's parents,
they married a year later. When his regiment rotated to England, they bought
the apartment as a permanent home. They were planning for a child when his unit
was assigned to the Gulf. He was returning from the second of these trips when
she died.

He
had been away for a long time and was willing the plane to go faster, he was so
impatient, he wanted to get back to her to touch her and hold her and tell her
how much he loved her. But that did not happen. He was intercepted in the
arrivals hall by two military policemen who told him what had happened, before
steering him to a waiting car that took him to the hospital. He was sure they
had made a mistake. Christine would be at home waiting for him, warm and
beautiful, just the way he had left her. There would be beers bought by the two
redcaps when he caught up with them, they would not get away with a stunt like
this.

He
had stood as though in a trance, his mind numb but trying to fight back the
cold feeling that was worming its way through his body. He remembered looking
down at the pale and broken corpse they had shown him in the mortuary, pulled
out of a bank of refrigerators like the contents of a grotesque filing cabinet.
This life is finished, so we have filed it under 'C'. It couldn't be
her,
it was someone who looked like her, that had to be it,
someone who looked like her, an easy mistake to make given the amount of
bruising on her face and body.

A
taxi had dropped him off outside the apartment. He rode in the lift to their
floor and walked along the corridor, expecting her to come hurtling out of the
door and fly into his arms, as she had done last time, nearly knocking him off
his feet. He unlocked the door and stepped inside, surprised by the lack of
noise. She usually had the radio playing at neighbour annoying volume while she
pottered around her home. He walked into the lounge and stopped. Above the
mantelshelf, two rows of cards were strung across the wall, one above the
other, each card pegged to a coloured piece of string anchored at each end by a
drawing pin, each card carrying its own single letter. The top row read,
WELCOME HOME SAM, the row below carried the words, I LOVE YOU TO DEATH.

It
was then he picked up the first bottle, one of many adorning the kitchen table,
and drank it. How long he had been there in a drunken haze he could never
remember. His next conscious thought was when some men from his unit, along
with the padre, broke into the apartment and set about sobering him up in time
for the funeral.

For
three years he had worked every hour possible, throwing himself into his work
as if nothing else existed, and for him, in a way, it hadn't. He felt that his
feelings for love and companionship were buried with his wife. If those
feelings were with her, they could not be hurt again. The heart-tearing wrench
of
laying
to rest the second person he had truly loved
had hurt enough, he could not face the possibility of it happening again. He
tried to explain how much he missed her but was unable find the right words.
She was all that he had, she was all that he cared about, and he missed her so
much.

Jayne
had let him talk, had let him purge the burden of grief his soul had been
carrying for far too long. When he had lapsed into silence, his face still damp
from the tears only then did she speak.

"I
can't say anything that will make things magically better. You needed to start
the healing
process,
you needed to share your grief
with someone for that process to start. You've done that and I'm glad it was me
you confided in. From what Vance tells me, and I have to drag everything out of
him, and from what you said, or did not say over dinner, it seems to me that
you're lonely. That’s not the way to be Sam, everybody needs somebody. You may
not think that now, but in time, you will. Sometime in the future, soon I hope,
someone will want to give you their love. Think about it seriously when it
happens
Sam. I never knew Christine, but I don't think she
would have wanted you to be alone and unhappy."