Brute Force (7 page)

Once over my first wind, my breathing became deep and regular and I was warm. I liked this. Running was when I got a lot of my best thinking done.

The sky was getting lighter, and the scenery around me was rugged. I passed a thatched cottage. They must have been early risers. Smoke curled from the chimney and I smelled burning turf. Probably not a second-homer like Dom; maybe a farmer or fisherman.

I pounded on methodically. At least Tallulah was talking about her grief. Not like some people who shoved it all deep down inside, slammed the lid and threw away the key. But hey, I liked it that way. Less to say and less to think about.

I hadn't known Pete well, but I missed him. It wasn't just because he'd saved my life during a fire-fight in Basra. It was because in a very short space of time I'd come to love him like a brother.

Pete and Dom – Poland's answer to Jeremy Bowen – had been embedded with British troops in Southern Iraq. It was my job to make sure each story they covered wasn't their last. Dom wasn't one of those bunker journos that gave their action-packed report from the safety of a Green Zone balcony. And that was my big problem. I spent every waking hour either pulling him down or away from something or someone that was trying to kill him.

Dom was one of those people who believed he could walk through a battle zone without a scratch. Pete had nicknamed him Platinum Bollocks; he said he was the sort of guy who seemed to walk into nothing but good.

He lived in Dublin with his wife and stepson. They also had a holiday cottage in Donegal, and when I phoned, he didn't hesitate to let us have it. He felt he owed me as much as I owed Pete, and he probably wasn't wrong.

I pounded into a neat, sleepy village – a handful of houses scattered around a crossroads. There was one shop that doubled as the post office and pub. The air was thick with the smell of the sea.

Tallulah and Ruby had never been far from Pete's thoughts.

'You got family, Nick?'

'I did have, once.'

I could still remember the sudden rush of pins and needles in my legs.

'A little girl that looked a lot like your Ruby, as a matter of fact. Her parents were killed; I was her guardian. I never really got the birthday thing right . . . in the end I had to ask someone more reliable to take over.'

Somebody once told me I lived that part of my life with the lid on, and I guessed they were right. It was the way it had to be.

I saw a sign for a nature walk. Pete had said Ruby and Tallulah were into all that stuff.

I remembered asking him if there'd be things he'd miss when he left the front line and started taking pictures of flowers and squirrels instead. I could still hear his reply. 'Sure. The camaraderie. The brotherhood. Even when you're up to your neck in shit, you're surrounded by mates.'

He'd been in Kabul when Ruby's mum had fucked off to Spain with the bloke who built their extension. It was Dom and all the other guys who kept him afloat.

I rounded a bend and the sea spread out in front of me. A huge, horseshoe-shaped bay with breakers the height of houses. The harbour looked like it had seen better days. Now the stocks had declined and the EU quotas had come in, it looked like tourism had taken the place of fishing. Every shabby little building seemed to be a scuba-diving or windsurfing school.

The road skirted the bay. I ran towards a cluster of disused huts and shacks on the headland.

It had taken me a long time to put all the pieces together, but I eventually discovered Pete had been killed by an operator in the Firm who'd been using it as a cover for a heroin-running operation. I knew him as the Yes Man. For years he'd been my boss. I killed him. I also killed his two Northern Ireland-born enforcers, Sundance and Trainers.

Tallulah knew none of this, and she'd never learn it from me. She had enough on her plate. Her husband of just a few months was dead, and he'd been an orphan. With no other family to hand Ruby over to, his daughter was now her responsibility.

I turned and headed back towards them.

19

I'd met Tallulah a couple of days after Pete was killed. Dom went missing, and I flew back to London with my forearm brassed up by a 7.62 short.

I'd been parked on a hard plastic chair in the A&E department at Guy's Hospital for the best part of four hours the next morning when two Polish builders alongside me got very excited about something on the TV. I looked up to see the crystal clear, black and white night-sight images of me tumbling into the Basra sewage and Pete being my hero.

It was being played over and over, not only because it was great bang-bang footage, but also as a tribute to Pete – and Platinum Bollocks, of course, for filming it. Luckily, the Poles didn't make a connection between the face on the screen and the one sitting next to them.

When she opened the door of their house in Herne Hill, Tallulah was wearing a baggy red jumper and her feet were bare. The shock of long, blonde, wavy, hippie hair I'd seen in Pete's photographs and movie clips was tied back to the nape of her neck.

I remembered her reaction as I unzipped the side pouch of my Bergen and handed her the bag containing Pete's belongings.

'Thank you so much for doing this, Nick. You don't know what it means to me.'

She'd begun lifting out his things one by one. She almost caressed each item.

Then she came to his almost-new wedding ring and her shoulders convulsed.

I turned up from the lane and my trainers slapped along the drive. The rain had stopped. The sun was up; the Merc glistened.

Might something happen now between Tallulah and me? Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't. I was scared by the possibility, but if it happened I'd go with it. But for now, it was early days. I liked the idea, but at the same time, it frightened me.

I leant against a tree to do my stretches. The cottage looked even more beautiful in this light, and I asked myself if I'd done the right thing turning down Platinum Bollocks' offer of a set of permanent keys.

Dom had read English Literature at Krakow University, done his national service and sailed into a job on the news desk of a Polish national newspaper. The rest was platinum-plated history. By the time I met him in Basra, he was the star of TVZ-24, a Polish channel with offices in Dublin.

He was tall and annoyingly good-looking, even when a thick layer of desert dust had given him a horror-film face. His
Top Gun
-style dark brown hair, blindingly white teeth and firm jaw line were featured most weeks next to his wife's equally good looks in Poland's answer to
Hello!
.

Dom had had another agenda while he was in Basra, I discovered. He was running a private investigation into the heroin trail from Afghanistan. It was a trail that eventually led him to the Yes Man. Pete was murdered as a warning, but Dom was like a dog with a bone. He ended up being bundled onto a rendition flight to Kabul, where I'd tracked him down and rescued him.

So yes, he owed me big-time, but no one knew that more than Dom himself. When I asked if I could borrow their cottage over Christmas, he said that he should really be handing me the deeds. I laughed. Of all the countries in all the world, Ireland would never be the wisest place for me to settle – Good Friday Agreement or no Good Friday Agreement.

It was just after nine. I pictured Tallulah messing around with the coffee grinder and the bacon sizzling in the pan. If it wasn't, I'd get it on the go. I wasn't as useless in the kitchen as I let on. I knew my way around a frying pan as well as a microwave.

I leant forward in a stretch. The rain hadn't cleaned the car quite as well as I'd thought. There was a muddy smudge along the door sill. Finger marks. There was also a depression in the mud beneath it, like the hollow a woodland animal makes when it sleeps.

I turned and walked away. I went in through the front door, and immediately threw the bolts behind me. Then I ran to the back of the house and did the same, and ran round and made sure every window was secure and kept the curtains closed. And then I went upstairs.

How the fuck was I going to explain to the girls their holiday was over before it had even started?

20

I put my ear to Tallulah's door. I could hear them talking. Either they'd shared a bed or Ruby had crept in during the night or when she woke up.

I called out. 'Room service – any teas or coffees for you ladies?'

'Teas please!' There was a smile in Tallulah's voice. 'And if some toast and honey finds its way onto the saucer as you're passing that would be lovely!'

Ruby giggled. 'Can I help? I'm a waitress!'

'No, no, no – you ladies stay exactly where you are. It's holiday time. Breakfast in bed.'

I ran downstairs to the kitchen and grabbed a knife. Fuck knows who or what was out there, but if they burst through the door right now all I had to defend us with was Mr Sabatier's finest.

I put the kettle on and threw some bread in the toaster.

I didn't know if there was a device under the car, but I had to assume there was. I hadn't seen a command wire so I didn't know if it was remote-controlled, but again, I couldn't take any chances. The smart money was on a pair of eyes up the hill, watching and waiting – either for all of us to come and get in the car, or, more likely, just me. Why would these two be the target?

The toast popped up and I took butter and milk from the fridge. The priority had to be keeping Tallulah and Ruby safe, preferably without them even knowing what was happening. They'd had enough trauma and distress to last them a lifetime.

I put the toast, butter and honey on a tray, and poured boiling water over a couple of teabags. There were shouts from upstairs. Ruby was enjoying the whole room-service thing.

'Waiter! Where is my breakfast?'

How would I get them out of here?

I was going to stay. I wanted to know what was under Mr Avis's pride and joy.

I piled the teapot, mugs and a little jug of milk on the tray, and then I picked up the phone and dialled a Dublin number.

'Dom. Nick. Listen, mate, can you come and collect the girls this evening? About five?'

Platinum Bollocks was concerned. 'You argued? They not liking it?'

I just said I needed him to get his arse up here to collect the girls, but only after five.

'Just give me two rings on the phone as you approach, and drive round the back of the house. Stay in the car, engine running, and they'll come out and jump in. Don't ask, mate, just do. I'll explain it all later, OK?'

I put down the receiver and picked up the tray. I carried it upstairs and tapped on the door. 'Everybody decent?'

'Enter.'

They were sitting up in bed, all smiles. I put the tray down in front of them with a flourish.

'OK.' I grinned. 'Not only breakfast in bed, but a huge surprise.'

Ruby looked excited. 'What kind of surprise?'

'You sure you're ready for this?'

'I'm sure, I'm sure!'

'OK, we're in Ireland, right?'

'Right.'

'And you know they do things differently in different countries?'

'Yes.'

'Well, guess what happens differently here? In Ireland, today is Christmas Day!'

They both looked at me like I'd gone mad.

'Yeah, it's a fact. Finish your breakfast, take as long as you like. When you come down, it's present time.'

Tallulah stared at me with an arched eyebrow.

I tried to signal back that I'd explain later, and turned for the door before she had time to react.

They didn't appear downstairs for another half hour. Good. Only another six or seven hours of daylight to go.

'Is it really Christmas early here, Nick? Tally says you're joking.'

'Well, she's right; but the thing is, I can't wait any longer. I'm too excited. I want you to open your present.'

Tallulah shot me another disapproving glance.

I shrugged. 'OK, I'd better break it to you guys gently. It's a terrible forecast, so I thought we should have something to keep us busy. It's going to tip with rain any minute, and pour all day.'

Tallulah went to the window and raised her hand to the curtain.

'No, Tallulah, let's leave them closed. Keep it cosy. Anyway, we'll need to be in the dark in a minute.'

She looked at me strangely, but complied.

'Here we go.' I handed Ruby a badly wrapped box about the size of three stacked DVD cases.

She tore it open and she was so ecstatic I thought the ceiling was going to fall in.

21

Two hours later, Ruby had beaten me to a pulp too many times to count on the Wii tennis court, and every time Tallulah asked me a question about what was going on I somehow fobbed her off. She'd given up in the end and disappeared into the kitchen.