The Outsiders (38 page)

She let her hand rest on his, then poured wine into his glass and they started to eat.

‘I’m not a cadet from the Military Academy,’ Dawson had said. He’d looked at the room they’d shown him. An iron-frame bed, with a wafer mattress, a sheet and a regulation blanket. A communal wash-house doubled with the toilet down the corridor. A window with sagging blinds looked out on to a cemetery.

He’d used his mobile, booked into the Rock.

‘Two options. I can take whatever it is I’m to deliver and eat on my own – quite a decent dining room, I’m told. Or you can come with the packet and join me.’

She’d hesitated. He’d rolled his eyes. He’d already let them know that the drive from Madrid was a bastard, that taking the vehicle through Spanish Customs and the colony’s immigration stretched the protocols of CD plates, but he had not asked what he was to collect and where he should take it. There were two others there, camp-followers and disciples of their boss, both of whom seemed to regard him as a threat to her: one was Kenny, the other was an unexciting little thing, Dottie. She’d said it wasn’t a big deal to her, that she’d take the meal and do the handover. He’d gone.

His room was on the first floor.

He was on the balcony and the storm had passed. The lights were on around the anchorage. He nursed a gin. A sign beside the door warned guests not to leave the balcony door open when vacating the room or an ape might enter and fall asleep on the bed. Titbits should not be left out even if the room was occupied. Their car came up the hill and turned into the car park.

She’d smartened herself up – a good sign. Skirt, black. Blouse, white. Jacket, charcoal with silver embroidery. The ‘little thing’ was dragging a package out of the back, big, awkward.

Dawson shouted, ‘I’ll come down, Winnie. I expect your colleagues’ll want to man the phones and do the paperwork. A taxi’ll drop you back to your boot camp.’

He downed the gin, straightened his tie, flicked imaginary fluff from his shoulders, brushed the caps of his shoes on the backs of his trouser legs and went to meet her.

She was in the hall, clutching the package to her chest.

She grinned. ‘Come on, Dawson, you idle sod. Come and get it.’

‘There’s a petrol station, he says, on the main drag out to Puerto Banus. A BP one, on the right.’

He had his hand between her thighs and moved his fingers gently. ‘Winnie, can we sort out delivery afterwards?’

‘No,’ she gasped. ‘That’s the right side for him, but the left side for you, the BP petrol place.’

She had dressed smartly, then endured Dottie’s sharp glances and the blank expression Kenny always put on when he was pretending to notice nothing while seeing everything. Dawson had been elegant, attentive, had talked the head waiter through the menu, and not hung about afterwards. They had gone out of the dining room and he had entwined her fingers in his, then led her to the lift.

‘Is that good?’

‘Course.’

He kissed her lips, then her chin and under it, near the little pearl set in gold that had belonged to an aunt, wife of Monks the Bread. The small bakery had gone bankrupt in 1973, and the aunt had died the next year. Winnie had been given the pearl suspended on its chain and always wore it . . .

‘Yes, just there. He’s going to be waiting.’ Difficult to recall what Xavier had said about the BP station.

‘Winnie, are you going to go on talking about it?’

‘You have to know if it’s on the right side or the left.’

‘I’m a big boy, I’ll find it.’

Later they lay on the bed.

Winnie said she wanted a cigarillo. Dawson said it was forbidden to smoke in the room. She kicked herself off the bed and rummaged on the floor till she found her handbag. She stepped on to the cold tiles of the balcony, lit up and coughed. He came to her side and put an arm loosely round her shoulders. There were men and women from Six and Five who would be spinning in their coffins at the thought of conjugal relations between the two Services. The bay was filled with the motionless lights of the ships. Beyond them were the streets of Algeciras and the illuminated docks. She remained under his arm, needing the reassurance of his body. She felt a rare vulnerability. The target was across the water and was coming very soon . . . She shivered.

‘You scared, Winnie?’

‘Fucking cold, and a bit scared.’

‘What am I taking?’

‘Well, not a box of chocolates.’

‘Would it get me sacked?’

‘Out on your ear, feet not touching the ground, unemployable afterwards.’

‘Big enough to be a bazooka?’

‘Something more selective. You don’t want to know.’

‘Does it all lead back to me?’

‘It won’t. That’s a promise.’

‘Was the reward a toss in the hay, that about it?’

‘Believe that if you want to, or don’t.’

It would be dawn soon, but the first gold was not yet on the water. She’d heard it said – a remark from an old stager who had done thirty-plus years with the Security Service – that the best-kept secret in the building was that ‘There’s a life outside.’ There would be, but all in good time. He kissed her ear, and said, ‘Time for my beauty sleep.’

She stubbed out the cigarillo on the balcony wall, went inside and groped around for her clothing. He sat naked to watch her. She dressed fast. The package filled his table.

She said, ‘Not to worry, Dawson. It’s Russian made, untraceable, and the ammunition comes from old Warsaw Pact stock. You’ll be clean. I’m grateful. It’ll be closure, wrapping up unfinished business. Started at the high point of the gardens by the monument that overlooks Budapest and us losing a young man there. He made us laugh and he was kicked to death. I wasn’t utterly frank with you before but I will be now. I organised this shipment before coming here, days before you told me that my first concept – arrest and extradition – was in the pan. My people didn’t ask the questions they should have, so they don’t know. I’ve had to lean on my team, bully them to keep them on board. I apologise for my lack of honesty with you.’

‘Winnie, with the roles reversed, I might have done the same. I’ll ring down for a taxi.’

‘Don’t bother.’ She kissed his cheek. ‘The BP station’s on the right for you. Maybe I’ll see you some time.’

‘Maybe.’

She closed the door after her and walked fast down the corridor, a hooker leaving a hotel room after the job was done. She was laughing to herself as she went down the stairs and across the lobby. The porter eyed her while a woman pushed a vacuum cleaner over the carpet. She went through the glass door, and a car’s lights came on. The engine started. They’d waited for her. She’d known they would.

She slipped into the back seat, and Kenny eased them into the road.

She had her mobile out of her bag ‘Xavier? Good man. Did I wake you? Sorry. Something I want from you, something else . . .’

He woke when his door opened. He’d found the bottle at the back of a cupboard in the kitchen. Whisky, a cheap brand, about half full. Now it was about empty. So, he’d slept well. He hadn’t heard them moving upstairs or coming down. He pushed himself up.

Snapper stood over him.

He blinked, yawned, then asked, ‘What do you want?’

The whisky had been useful. It had taken him all afternoon and into the evening to speak to a human being at Málaga International. Finally he’d asked for the tickets to be transferred to an immediate flight and been told it would cost an additional 412 euros. Jonno didn’t have that sort of money and it was unlikely that Posie would be able to pay her half. So, they were stuck.

‘We need something from you.’

‘Is that a request or an instruction?’

‘Treat it as a request.’

‘What do you want?’

Snapper said, ‘We need you to drive down to town. There’s a car park on the edge of the gardens opposite the Moors’ walls. You go there, collect a packet and bring it back here. We can’t have it delivered to the door and we aren’t up for going cross-country at the back.’

‘Is it important?’

‘Look, I don’t have to explain anything to you. We
need
you to go into town and collect what’s given to you.’

‘And if I won’t?’

‘Then we’re back to where we were before. I’m warning you gently that nasty things will keep popping up. I reckoned you had the brains to work that one out. Was I wrong?’

Jonno managed a sweet smile, and mimicked the voice he’d heard the previous afternoon: ‘ “God’s truth – and I don’t care who knows it – I’m wobbling.” I think that’s what was said.’

‘Keep looking over your shoulder is my advice,’ Snapper said, with venom.

‘Just tell me when to get on the road.’

Jonno slipped off the bed and padded past Snapper towards the bathroom. Posie was in the kitchen; he could have told her she was staying for the duration, unless she had 206 euros to spare, but decided to keep it for a choicer moment. A changed man, yes. He didn’t like himself, and didn’t have to, and didn’t care.

14

‘It can overwhelm you, PTSD can. You hate yourself and everyone else.’

Rain whipped the windows and leaves were battered off the trees. Water streamed from the gutters. If Jonno didn’t listen to Sparky he was back on family holidays, in rented cottages near the Devon coast, the rain falling, the wind hammering and board games out on the table. Mostly he listened.

‘I was obsessed with it, and Patsy had been. I stayed with it, and she moved on. Three months later – reporting my progress to the magistrate – I saw her and she had a bloke with her. We didn’t speak and she kept going, but her face had gone scarlet. I hadn’t the right to hold on to her. She’d told me the likely cause was a malfunction of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis – if it’s stressed it makes high levels of cortisol and adrenalin, which produce the flight-or-fight reaction in combat. She said that Swedish troops sent to Bosnia with low salival cortisol levels faced a higher risk of the disorder.’

He would be told when he had to go into town for the meeting. Loy had refreshed the shopping list.

‘If you lose your life you come back in a box and everyone’s respectful and heartbroken. If you lose an arm, a leg, you’re a hero and people want to know you. Trouble comes when there’s nothing on the brain for a scan to fasten on. The military don’t want you so they shuffle you out and pass on the problem to someone in Civilian Land. I was lucky.’

He didn’t know what Posie did up in the roof space, and seldom heard her voice. He had told her that the additional amount for the airfare was beyond him. She’d looked at him as if that were further proof of his inadequacy and had gone upstairs. He’d called after her: ‘But you can always bloody walk or hitch a ride with your friends.’

‘I didn’t have the dog, but I had the garden. It’s St John’s, in a square, surrounded by metal railings, not as good as walls but brilliant for me. Nothing dangerous can get at me – no one can come inside and put IEDs in the flowerbeds. I’m secure there. I’m a paratrooper, the Sunray’s sweetheart, and I kill men . . . but I’m using secateurs to do pruning, digging beds and planting out the bedding for the summer. I’m raking leaves . . .’

He hadn’t seen it but had heard the commentary on a man being fed alive into a chipper’s funnel. He had gone into the garden and wrung an injured cat’s neck to end its pain. Small experiences when set against Sparky’s world.

‘She used to come in and have her smoke. She’s incredible. To all of them, and to me, she’s the Boss. She understands me, takes the trouble to, and I’d do anything she asked of me. She cares about me – the fact that I have a new life, in that garden, is because of her. It motivates me to keep going.’

Why had such a fragile man been sent as protection to Snapper and Loy? Jonno thought it wasn’t his business to ask. He said he had to go and check the fridge. He reckoned that anyone who had found a willing ear would be used to having it snatched away. He went into the kitchen. He could do with some bread, might need a carton of milk. Some sausages would be good, oven chips, beans or peas. The crowd upstairs had now taken two shelves in the fridge and Jonno was left with one. Anything for Posie was kept on
their
shelf, and she had a couple of cartons of fruit juice.

He made his own list. What had he done in his life? Not a lot. What had Sparky done in his life? Too much.

He was involved with them all. He knew that Snapper wobbled, that Loy was moving on Posie, that Sparky was wrecked, that the Russian and his Serbs killed and hurt bad when they did it . . . knew too much and would forget nothing. He knew about the Boss and a garden . . . and about a packet that had been sent to them.

Winnie watched. There were always binoculars in Kenny’s bag, and he’d brought them to her. They had good magnification and she had a view across the cemetery, over its far wall and on to the runway. She had to twist herself to see where the traffic crossed the tarmac. There was a good flow – morning commuters and shoppers going from the colony into Spain. It was too early for the first flight in from the UK, when the runway was handed over to incoming aircraft.