The Watchman (31 page)

Back at the hotel she changed into it all, adding a Wonderbra.

"Blimey!" said Alex, impressed.

"All you need now is a forty-a-day Rothman's habit and a boyfriend on Crimestoppers!"

"If we hang around at Pablito's long enough I'll probably end up with both."

Alex raised an eyebrow.

"I thought you were already taken. Mr. Lucky-boy in London."

Dawn rolled her eyes and swung her bag over her shoulder.

"Let's go."

Pablito's appeared deserted. The swing doors were locked, the tables untenanted and wasps swung threateningly around an overflowing litter bin.

Checking his watch, Alex knocked at the entrance. The door was opened by Marie, who was wearing a pink velour tracksuit.

"Come in.

"Fraid Den's still sleeping it off. You look a treat, my love. Cup of Nes?"

"Lovely," said Dawn.

When the coffee was ready they carried it upstairs. Above the bar was a small landing giving on to a bedroom and bathroom, and a sun-baked roof terrace. On a large rectangle of plastic matting at one end of this, naked but for a faded pair of Union Jack underpants, lay Denzil Connolly, snoring. An ashtray had overturned at his side and a nine-tenths-empty bottle of Bell's whisky lay just beyond the reach of his outstretched arm.

"He likes to sleep under the stars," said Marie.

"I had to put down the matting 'cause the bottles kept smashing and then he'd roll on the pieces in the night. He's a big feller, as you can see." She folded her arms in a long-suffering gesture.

"Den, love, we've got company.

The sleeping figure stirred and the eyes half opened in pull~ suspicion.

"Wha' the fuck you..." Seeing Alex and Dawn, he closed his eyes again, groaned and writhed like a hippopotamus.

"Wha's fuckin' time?"

"Twelve. And Alex and Dawn are here."

"Who? Oh, yeah, right. Give us a hand up."

He struggled to his feet and Marie led him inside. There were unpleasant noises from the bathroom.

By the time they sat down to lunch on the terrace half an hour later, however, Connolly appeared fully recovered. Bullish, even, in his vast shorts and polo shirt.

They ate fish and oven chips with vinegar and mushy peas cooked by Marie and drank ice-cold Spanish beer.

"You two should get a place over here," Connolly said expansively. He winked at Dawn.

"Can you cook, love?"

"You betcha."

"Well, then. Sorted."

"It would be nice, wouldn't it, Alex?" said Dawn.

"I'm afraid I'm not quite in the early-retirement league," said Alex.

"Maybe I could set up a little security outfit, though. Country clubs, golf clubs..."

"Protection?" asked Marie brightly.

"Well, I wouldn't put it exactly like that ..

The meal, and later the afternoon and early evening, wore on pleasantly enough. Alex had taken a couple more ephedrine tablets at the hotel and so was happy to maintain a steady intake of cold beer. Connolly drank Scotch from the start, occasionally topping up his drink with a splash of mineral water, and by mid-afternoon Alex estimated that the big man had sunk a good third of a bottle. This, he knew, was when you got the best of a heavy drinker: in the five- or six-hour window following recovery. The whisky seemed to have little effect on Connolly other than to cheer him up and he proved a vastly entertaining host, telling story after story about the criminal fraternity who were the bar's main if not only clientele. No mention was made of his own exploits, however, nor of his military past.

At four o'clock Marie drove them to San Pedro, where Connolly was a member of a country club. In practice this simply meant a change of bar and Alex tried to moderate his alcoholic intake. Dawn did her rum-and-Coke trick, always managing to have a full glass at her side, but for Alex it was harder. Connolly, he sensed, needed to know that he was in the presence of a kindred spirit. He needed company on the long alcoholic journey that would end in oblivion in the early hours of the morning. He needed to see Alex keep pace with him. This was the price for the information that he had to offer.

At six they returned to El Angel, where Maria prepared the bar for the night's trade and microwaved a frozen chicken-and-pineapple pizza to keep them all going. Despite having drunk more than two-thirds of a bottle of Scotch, Connolly appeared solid as a rock and capable of continuing for ever. Alex, by contrast and despite the ephedrine, was beginning to feel decidedly light-headed. It was a very hot day and he had downed a good dozen beers in half as many hours.

Surreptitiously palming a glass and a salt cellar from one of the tables he disappeared into the Gents. There he poured a good teaspoonful of salt into the glass, added water and waited while it dissolved. Gritting his teeth, he took a hefty swig. As soon as the salt hit the back of his throat he retched convulsively, bringing up the last few drinks in a warm gush. Twice more, he forced himself to repeat the exercise. By the end of it he was white-faced and nauseated, but reckoned he had probably bought himself another couple of hours of drinking time.

Soon, the first customers started to arrive and the routine of the night began to repeat itself. Connolly appeared to be in expansive form again, greeting every new arrival with huge enthusiasm, roaring with laughter at their jokes and dispensing drinks liberally.

Alex began to despair of ever getting him alone. Had the big man, he fell to wondering, remembered a single detail of their conversation the night before? Or had he and Dawn simply been two vaguely recognised faces who, for reasons unknown, had turned up to keep him company?

The evening passed in a beery, pissed-up blur. He had drunk himself sober, Alex found, and with every minute that passed his irritation grew. He should have known better than to force through this trip on the word of a known head case like Stevo. All that he had done was compound his failure to protect Widdowes by promising information that, when push came to shove, he couldn't deliver.

"I'm not confident about all of this," he confided to Dawn at about 11 p.m.

"Last night I was convinced he had something to tell us but now I think he's just stringing me along. That is, if he remembers what I said to him last night, which I'm seriously beginning to doubt."

"I think you're wrong," said Dawn.

"I think he's trying to come to a decision. I think we're in the best place we could be right now."

Alex stared at her, amazed. Her tone was both comp licit and intimate. Her usual operational scratchiness was nowhere to be found.

"Trust me, Alex," she added, turning her back to the bar and placing a proprietorial hand on his shoulder.

"I've seen this sort of thing from informants before. It's a sort of dance they do, like cats walking round and round a place before they sit down."

"I'm glad you think so," said Alex, pleasantly conscious of the small pressure of her hand.

"I was going to say that I thought we'd blown several grand of your agency's budget on a wild goose chase. That you might have some serious explaining to go through when you get back to Thames House. Swanky hotels and bikinis and all the rest of it."

"Oh, the bikini won't be wasted," said Dawn airily.

"But take my advice. Let Connolly come to you. He knows why you're here, all right." She winked.

"Trust me!"

"I do trust you.

"Well, I'm not sure if I should trust you with all these Costa Crime femmes fatales. I've seen a couple of real vampires eyeing you up.

"Well, then your observational skills are better than mine, girl, because I haven't clocked them."

She tapped the mobile phone in her jeans-jacket pocket.

"Would it surprise you that there was a call made to the hotel this morning asking to be put through first to your room and then to mine?"

"And?"

"And the caller discovered what he wanted to know, which is that we had the same room number. That I'm really your girlfriend, not some scalp hunter from Box or Special Branch."

Alex smiled.

"Well, I'm glad we've got that straight."

She gave him a long, cool glance.

"Will you do something for me?"

"What?" he asked, inhaling the smoky jasmine of her scent.

"If we get anything from Connolly will you go all the way for me?"

He narrowed his eyes.

"What exactly do you..."

She leant towards him, took his bottom lip between her teeth and bit him. Not hard, but not softly either.

"Stay on the case. You and me together. As equals. No more bullshit, no more fighting. After all," she murmured, 'we are supposed to be sleeping together."

He stared into her level grey eyes, dazed by her closeness.

"So, lovebirds, whassup?"

It was Connolly, swaying in front of them.

And Marie.

"Dawn, love," she said, "I've come to borrow you. You know the words to "Stand by Your Man", don't you? We need more chorus members."

"Ooh, lovely," trilled Dawn.

Connolly waited until the women had gone, then nodded towards the stairs.

On the roof terrace they drew up chairs. A bottle of Paddy's whiskey, two glasses and Connolly's cigarettes were arranged on a low table. The fat man poured the drinks.

"Joe Meehan, then," he said, raising his glass.

"What's the story, morning glory?"

"How much do you know about what you were finishing him for?" asked Alex, sipping the whiskey, feeling the dark burn of its descent.

"Officially, nothing. Except that it was clear he was going over the water. And going in very deep, given the attention he was given. And I also knew that he was very good. Almost certainly the best man I ever trained."

"No one told you anything?"

"No, we were left to draw our own conclusions. I'll tell you something, though.

They made a big thing about the secrecy of the operation. It was an RTUable offence even to mention it."

"Well, notes are being compared now."

Connolly waited, his glass steady in his hand, immobile.

Alex leant forward.

"You were right about Ireland, obviously. He went in deep, joined the Provies, worked his way up.

"Brave lad."

"He was," agreed Alex.

"Until the whole thing went arse-up. They turned him, Den."

"Not possible," said Connolly flatly.

"They never turned that lad, I'd bet the bar on it. He was the best I ever saw. The most committed. He'd never have fallen for all that tin pot Armed Struggle bollocks."

"They turned him, Den," Alex repeated.

"He joined Belfast Brigade's Nutting Squad. Made bombs for them. Personally tortured and murdered those FRU blokes - Bledsoe and Wheen."

"Not possible, mate," said Connolly again matter-of-factly, tapping the filter of a cigarette on the table and lighting it.

"I just don't believe you.

"It's true and it's verified. The province's worst nightmare, and the Regiment and Box put him there."

Connolly shook his head in disbelief. Closed his eyes, briefly.

"So now you're after him, yeah?"

"Look, I don't know what happened over the water, Den, but the man's certainly killing people now. Three in the last couple of months."

"And so you've been pulled in to kill him." Connolly took a drag of his cigarette, sipped reflectively at his whiskey and stared out over the sea.

"I need to find him. Put any spin on that you like."

Connolly shook his head.

"You can fuckin' whistle, chum."

"Den, mate, you've got a nice set-up here, and you've been good to me and Dawn. But do you really want to spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder, worrying that someone's going to grass you up? Worrying that every new customer might have an extradition order and a warrant in his pocket? Armed robbery, Den. Think about it. It pulls down a heavy score.

From the other man's expression Alex could see that he had thought about it, often.

"Are you threatening me?"

"No. What I'm saying is that I can make that worry disappear. For ever. But I'm going to have to have something very solid to offer in return. If you've nothing to give me I'll disappear, and everything will carry on as it was before."

He emptied his glass and poured himself another.

"I'm not threatening you, Den, I'm just making you an offer. Take it or leave it.~ For several minutes they both stared out at the sea. From below them, in the bar, came the muted sound of singing and laughter.

"There was a thing Joe told me once, about his childhood," Connolly began abruptly.

"He spent his teens, it must have been, with his dad in the West Country Dorchester, was it, somewhere like that and every summer they'd go caravanning. Lake District, New Forest, Norfolk Broads, all over. Just the two of them. Now on one of those trips, he told me can't remember which his dad parked up the caravan and they set off for a hike across country.

"Usual enough story they went a bit too far, weren't quite sure of their bearings, weather turned nasty on them, so rather than foot slog it back they decided to try and find a bed and breakfast. No B&B for miles, as it turned out, but what they did find was the entrance to a big old house. Deserted, with boarded-up windows and that kind of thing. The place had obviously been secured at some point, but the padlocks and the notices on the gate had been vandalised and it was pouring with rain and in they went. It was getting dark by then, and the plan was to shelter for the night and make tracks back to the caravan park in the morning.

"So anyway they got inside, found a dry corner and got their heads down. The old man's a bit worried by this point, being a law-abiding sort of bloke, but the boy's in heaven: he and his dad are having the adventure of a lifetime! Morning comes and they find that there's not just the house there's a ruined church and a river and some falling-down cottages and a couple of shops a whole village. All completely deserted. Obviously been locked away for years."

"Like Imber, on Salisbury Plain? Or what's that Royal Armoured Corps place in Dorset Tyneham?"

"Exactly. Just like that. So they have a bit of an explore. The dad's still a bit jumpy but as I say, the boy's having the time of his life. He climbs into the church through a window, jimmies a door open and finds his way down to the crypt. Now I can't remember the exact details but somewhere down there, locked away in boxes or cupboards or something, is all this antique gear."