Hybrid Page 7

  Within minutes, he was asleep.

  RUNNING ON EMPTY

  The glass fell to the floor and bounced once on the carpet.

  Ward woke with a start, staring around the darkened room. At first he could see nothing.

  Not a hand in front of him.

  For one second of madness he thought he'd gone blind. Then he realised that night had descended. How long had he been asleep in the chair?

  He sat up, looking down at the dropped glass as he slowly became accustomed to the gloom. He rubbed his eyes and squinted at his watch. 8.56 p.m.

  Ward hauled himself out of the armchair and stumbled backwards and forwards turning on lamps. Their welcome glow spread through the darkness, banishing the blackness like an unwanted dream. He finally switched on the television, not caring which channel he found, wanting only the familiar sight and sound. He drew the curtains and shook his head.

  There was a gnawing pain in the pit of his stomach and he realised how hungry he was. He hadn't eaten since lunchtime, over seven hours ago.

  He picked up the glass he'd dropped, thankful that it had been empty, and made his way to the kitchen,

  switching on lights in his wake. The fluorescents buzzed like somnolent bluebottles and he winced as their brilliant, white light seemed to sear his eyes. He crossed to the fridge and took out a bottle of milk, drinking straight from the bottle in an attempt to quench his raging thirst. Then he studied the contents of the fridge.

  Some tomatoes, a cucumber, lettuce that was beginning to turn brown, cheese and a couple of yogurts.

  He exhaled wearily.

  There was a frozen meal in the freezer, he remembered. It took less than ten minutes in the microwave. That would do.

  He stuck the meal in the oven and made his way back into the sitting room where he poured himself a drink and waited for his dinner to cook.

  He noticed there were three messages on his answer-phone. He chose to ignore them for the time being. He would eat first and they couldn't be that important anyway. Not much was these days.

  He watched a little of the news while he waited. A plane crash in India. An earthquake in Mexico.

  He flicked channels. There was some American sitcom on Channel 4. A programme about World War II on BBC1. He watched that until his meal was ready.

  And he drank.

  ELECTRICAL PROBLEMS

  Ward woke again at 12.15. He rubbed his eyes and moved quickly around the room switching off lights and electrical appliances, then he made his way up the stairs to bed.

  As he set the alarm he glanced again at the answer-phone and decided to check his messages the following morning. He was too tired now.

  Undressing quickly, he climbed into bed without brushing his teeth. He hoped that he would fall asleep quickly. He didn't.

  He tossed and turned for over an hour before dragging himself irritably to his feet.

  The moon, despite the abundance of cloud, was bright and cast a cold, white glow over everything. Ward stood looking out into the night. He opened the window and sucked in several deep breaths.

  His head was throbbing. A combination of drink and insomnia. He decided his prolonged naps during the day and evening must have caused his inability to sleep.

  Ward looked at his office and saw the now familiar silvery grey light. He must have forgotten to switch off the monitor again.

  One part of him said leave it, the other that he was

  up, he was awake, why not switch it off?

  He pulled on a pair of jogging bottoms and a sweatshirt and headed for the stairs. He pressed the four-digit number to neutralise the alarm then passed through the kitchen to the back door.

  The moon emerged from behind a bank of dark cloud just as he stepped out into the garden so he didn't bother switching on the outside light.

  He made his way quickly towards the office and let himself in. He climbed the stairs and stood in front of the monitor. It was, indeed, still on.

  Ward switched it off, muttering to himself, then turned and wandered back down the stairs and out into the garden. As he did so the moon retreated behind the clouds, plunging him into darkness.

  Ward hesitated as he heard rustling sounds. One of the many cats that infested the neighbourhood, he told himself. He bent down, picked up a small stone and threw it in the general direction of the noise.

  There was a loud yowl and Ward smiled. That might keep some of the cat shit off his lawn, he thought as he opened the back door.

  He looked back at the office. Everything was in darkness. As it should be.

  THE SLEEP OF THE DEAD

  It was almost daylight by the time Ward finally drifted off to sleep.

  He didn't hear the alarm clock when it rang three hours later. He slept on.

  MAKING AN EFFORT

  Ward woke at 11.30 that morning. He showered, dressed and wandered out to the office, not hopeful of being able to write but anxious to make an effort.

  There was a dead bird on the lawn. Probably killed by the cat he'd thrown a stone at the previous night. He made a mental note to move it when he'd finished for the day.

  As he entered the office he shivered. But it was always cool at the bottom of the stairs, no matter what the time of year.

  He climbed the stairs to the office.

  The monitor was switched on.

  A MYSTERY

  He knew he'd turned it off. He would have sworn on a Bible if he'd had one handy.

  He sat before the blank screen, gazing at it. Some kind of electrical fault, perhaps? A power surge in the night?

  That had to be the answer. Either that or his memory was worse than he thought.

  Had he dreamt coming out to the office the previous night? It was possible.

  He rested his fingers on the keys, sucked in a deep breath and began to type.

  Doyle hated the smell of hospitals.The cloying,antiseptic odour made him feel nauseous.

  He wondered why. He'd been inside enough of the fucking places in his life. He should be immune to it by now. And the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast smelt the same as all the others.

  He blinked hard, trying to clear his vision. He couldn't remember if he'd passed out in the ambulance or if his drowsiness was the result of anaesthetic.

  He tried to move and felt pain in his side and left leg. 'Shit,' the counter terrorist murmured and pushed the sheets down.

  All the old, familiar scars were there. The ones that criss-crossed his body like a street map. The result of bullet wounds, explosions. Whatever the weapon, Doyle bore a scar as testament to an encounter with it.

  He looked down at his heavily bandaged torso and leg.

  More to add to the collection.

  A doctor had once told him that with the amount of injuries he'd received, he had no right to be alive. That he should be grateful. He looked down again at the scars on his body and shook his head.

  Grateful?

  He almost laughed.

  The door of his room opened and a nurse entered.

  'Mr Doyle,' she said. 'How are we feeling?'

  'We've felt better,' he answered.

  'I'm not surprised,' she told him, crossing to his bed and feeling for his pulse, checking it against the watch fastened to her tunic.'They had to put thirty stitches in you. And you lost a lot of blood. Half an inch to the left and that knife would have cut a major artery in your leg.'

  She let go of his wrist and scribbled something on his chart.

  'When can I leave?' he wanted to know.

  'When the doctor gives you the all-clear' She took his temperature and wrote something else on the clipboard.

  'Your records indicate multiple injuries over the years,' she said. 'Any residual effects?'

  He shook his head.

  'Do you get pain from any of these?' she wanted to know, running appraising eyes over his scars.

  'Some stiffness every now and then but nothing to shout about,' he told her. 'That's probably my age, not the scars.'


  'You're in good shape,' she smiled, pulling the sheet up around his chest.

  Doyle met her gaze, watching as her cheeks reddened slightly.

  'I'll be back with your lunch,' she told him, heading for the door.

  'Stick a packet of fags on the side, will you?'

  She paused.

  'You've a visitor. Shall I send him in?'

  Doyle nodded.

  He heard voices outside then a familiar figure strode into the room.

  Chief Inspector Peter Robinson removed his cap and ran a hand across his bald pate.

  'What the hell happened, Doyle?' he said angrily.

  'Nice to see you too. Pull up a chair. Or, better still, fuck off and leave me in peace. What do you mean, "what happened"? It's pretty obvious, isn't it? Leary got away.'

  'Because you didn't follow procedure.'

  'Because your men fucked up. You had snipers covering that flat, why didn't one of the dozy twats shoot him when he came out?'

  'We didn't have positive ID.'

  'Jesus Christ, some cunt comes rushing out into the street with a fucking shotgun in his hand and starts shooting at a police vehicle. I'd have thought that would have narrowed it down a bit!

  Robinson drew in a deep breath and met Doyle's furious gaze.

  'What about Finan?' the counter terrorist wanted to know.

  'He died before we could get him to hospital. You killed one of our main leads.'

  'Shit happens,' Doyle said flatly. 'Any word on where Leary's gone?'

  'Probably back into the Republic. We've more than likely lost him for good now.'

  'He'll turn up. Trust me.' Doyle ran a hand through

  his hair. 'What did you find inside the flat?'

  'Fifteen pounds of Semtex. Detonators. Weapons and ammunition.'

  'What kind of weapons?'

  'Mainly handguns. There were half a dozen automatics and revolvers. Four AK47s and a couple of Ingram Mach 10s.'

  'Any other fingerprints apart from Finan and Leary?'

  'If there are we haven't found them yet. It looks as if they were operating alone.'

  Doyle nodded and silence descended on the room. It was finally broken by Robinson.

  'You're lucky Leary didn't kill you,' the policeman offered.

  'Yeah, so people keep telling me. Well, I'm telling you now, next time I run into him, he won't be so lucky. I'll kill him:

  'You've got to find him first. You're not going to do that lying in here are you?'

  'I'll be out by tomorrow.'

  'Have the doctors told you that?'

  'I've decided.'

  'And then what?'

  I'll take care of Leary once and for all.'

  DOWNING STREET, LONDON:

  Cigarette smoke had gathered beneath the high ceiling of the room and it hung there like a man-made rain cloud. Every now and then the air-conditioning would send ripples through the grey curtain and it would shimmer like a spectre in a fading dream.

  Only one of the men in the room was smoking.

  Bernard Wolfe was forty-eight years old and he'd been on twenty a day since he was thirteen. The Irishman enjoyed a cigarette, and the feeble intrusions of political correctness were of no interest to him. Neither were the occasional, exaggerated coughs of the men who sat opposite him.

  Neville Howe was a year his senior. A tall man with pinched features, he had unusually lustrous brown hair for someone approaching their half century. There wasn't so much as a trace of grey at his temples, leading some people to wonder if he was immune to the onset of age or knew a very capable barber.

  Howe stared alternately at Wolfe and the papers spread before him on the large, polished oak table at which they sat. He had held the post of Secretary of

  State for Northern Ireland for less than three months. This was his first meeting with anyone from Sinn Fein or any of the other parties embroiled in the mess that was Northern Ireland politics.

  He wore a perfectly tailored charcoal-grey Armani suit, which he brushed constantly with one hand as if to remove some flecks of dust.

  Beside him sat Sir Anthony Pressman. He was three years older than Howe, bespectacled, white-haired and had the kind of ruddy cheeks that suggested joviality. But if the Home Secretary was familiar with levity, then it was nothing more than a passing acquaintance. His heavily lined forehead was the legacy of six years in the job.

  Pressman was no stranger to meetings such as these, whether the venue was London, Belfast or Dublin. Certainly since the Good Friday Agreement, he had been at more of these summits (as the press liked to call them) than he cared to remember.

  Present at most of the meetings were Wolfe and his colleague Peter Hagen.

  At forty-two Hagen was the youngest man in the room. He was also one of the youngest men ever to have been appointed to Sinn Fein's ruling body. It was rumoured that prior to this position, he had spent five years in an active IRA cell, operating everywhere from Londonderry to Birmingham. Amiable but occasionally short-tempered, he was as adept at the negotiating table as he had, allegedly, been with an Armalite.

  Hagen reached for a jug of water and refilled his glass.

  Bernard Wolfe was speaking.'We feel that the action

  taken in Belfast was,' Wolfe paused as if searching for the word, 'excessive.'

  'Certainly excessive force was used,' Hagen concurred, sipping his drink.

  The incident was regrettable, I agree,' Pressman offered. 'But you must see it from our point of view. Finan and Leary were both considered dangerous. Something proved during the incident, I hasten to add. Having said that, I agree that the measures taken against them were somewhat extreme.'

  Wolfe blew a stream of smoke into the air. The fact is that neither Finan nor Leary were affiliated to our organisation,' he observed.

  'Our concern is for the people of what we all want to regard as a united Ireland,' said Hagen. 'Innocent bystanders' lives were put at risk. Catholic and Protestant. Put at risk by a member of your security forces.'

  'If the reaction of the security forces was extreme,' Howe interjected, 'it was because the situation they found themselves in was extreme.'

  'Steps had already been taken by our organisation to prevent any further activity by Finan and Leary,' Wolfe continued. 'We view the activities of the Continuity IRA and the Real IRA with as much disapproval as you, Mr Howe.'

  The Secretary of State nodded sagely and smiled a practised smile. 'We understand that, but the fact remains that neither Sinn Fein nor the military wing of your organisation has been able to control the activities of men like Finan and Leary. Also, most members of the Continuity and Real IRA are known to have been members of your organisation at one time.'

  That's open to question,' snapped Wolfe, grinding out his cigarette.

  'But steps were taken to communicate with them,' Hagen said, sharply.'We realise such men pose a threat to the peace process. We're as anxious to see peace in our country as you are.'

  'A great many compromises have been made to hasten a complete end to the situation in Northern Ireland,' Howe said. 'Most of them, I might add, by this government.'

  'Are you implying that your government are more anxious for peace than we are?' snapped Hagen.

  'My colleague was implying nothing of the kind,' Pressman offered, raising a hand as if in supplication. 'We are committed to finding a peaceful solution to the problems in Northern Ireland. I find what happened in Belfast as shocking as you.'

  'How can you guarantee it won't happen again?' Wolfe wanted to know.

  'With the greatest of respect, Mr Wolfe,' said Howe almost apologetically, 'how can you?'

  'Certain measures will be undertaken,' Pressman assured the men seated opposite him. This government will continue to support and encourage a peaceful settlement that is acceptable to all parties concerned. You have my word on that.'

  'It's a matter of trust,' Howe echoed.

  'So, what do you intend to do?' enquired Wolfe.

  Pressman si
pped from his glass and cleared his throat. 'I feel an example must be made,' he began.

  For the first time during the meeting he smiled.

  SEPTEMBER 5th, 1994:

  The headstone was black marble. The rain that had been falling for most of the day trickled down it like tears as if imitating those that had been shed at the graveside earlier.

  In the damp, night air the smell of flowers was still strong. They lay in their cellophane-wrapped bundles around the graveside, the falling rain beating a tattoo on the clear covering.

  The smell of freshly turned earth mingled with the sickly sweet aroma and, through the stillness of the night, the scraping of metal on wood sounded.

  A spade had connected with the wood of the coffin.

  One of the two men standing inside the hole pulled a torch from his jacket pocket and aimed it at the top of the box. The light reflected off the brass nameplate.

  The man sought out the six screws that held the coffin lid in place and bent to the closest of them. His companion, still sweating from his exertions, nudged him and shook his head.

  No need to open the fucking thing.

  There was more movement from the graveside.

  Something heavy was being dragged across the wet earth. Two of the bouquets were crushed beneath it.

  The body was wrapped in plastic bin liners, wound around with gaffer tape. It resembled the cocoon of some huge, malevolent butterfly. But there would be no hatching from this plastic pupa.

  The heavy form was tumbled into the grave and it landed with a dull thud on top of the coffin. It took less than half an hour to refill the gaping hole.

  The bouquets were placed back on top of the mound. The men prepared to make their way back to the car which awaited them just beyond the low stone wall that marked the perimeter of the cemetery.

  One of them paused a moment longer and glanced once more at the headstone.

  DOUGLAS WALSH

  BELOVED HUSBAND AND FATHER

  ASLEEP IN THE ARMS OF GOD

  He nodded, almost reverentially. Now Douglas Walsh had someone to share eternity with him. The man looked up at the clouds and lit another cigarette. The rain continued to fall.

  BELFAST:

  Mr Doyle, I cannot stress strongly enough my disapproval at what you're about to do.'