Heaven's Door (14 page)

“I don't believe it,” said Tom. “I thought you'd have been shot dead by a jealous husband by now!” The two men embraced. Gary ‘Anything' Henderson – known as ‘A.T.' for short – had been named for his legendary reputation when it came to targeting someone to sleep with.

“They tried, Tuber, but they missed. Big advantage being not much of a target.” He was no more than average height, slim and wiry, and by far the smallest of the group.

Standing next in line was the baby of the team; the last one to join the group and the wildest of them all. A fiery, red-haired young Scot with the physique of a champion body-builder. Even so, Terry ‘Big Mac' McQueen had earned his nickname through his addiction to burgers rather than his size and ancestry.

“See
you
, Jimmy!” said Tom, with the widest of grins, prodding him in the chest.

“That's the worst fucking Scottish accent I've heard since I watched
Brigadoon
, Major … sir.”

They all laughed, happy to be together again. Then, behind them, Tom spotted another figure, this one in the sand-coloured beret of the SAS with its inverted sword insignia.

Tom gasped. “Sweet! Sweet Deverall! What the hell …? You look great. What happened – miracle cure?”

Jad laughed.

“Nothing was going to stop me,” he said. “Not from the chance of one more mission with you.”

They embraced, and then the whole six-man team boarded the Lynx. Blisters and Big Mac seated themselves at the controls; the rotors engaged. The others settled comfortably and naturally into their seats and after two minutes of intensifying noise the two 1120-shp Rolls-Royce engines seemed to throw them into the sky. The nose dipped and the helicopter raced away, quickly reaching its maximum speed of around 180 mph.

It seemed to Tom that he had never been away. None of them appeared to him to have changed at all; even Jad looked completely restored to his former self. The banter in the cabin was so familiar that Tom could almost speak the words before he heard them from his comrades. He had almost forgotten the grim purpose of their mission when he was suddenly snapped out of his nostalgia.

“Target dead ahead! Three miles! Positions!” shouted Big Mac.

Tom looked out of the side window but could see nothing except dense swirling mist.

Chalky and A.T. moved quickly on Big Mac's command to the door on the left side of the aircraft, sliding it back and subjecting the cabin to the intense cold of the Atlantic weather. They unclipped the pintle-mounted heavy machine gun from its restraining brackets just forward of the door, and swung it round on its rotation arm through 180 degrees, securing it against the bulkhead in its attack position aiming outwards through the opening. Settling behind it, Chalky adjusted trajectory and sights.

“Check ATS!” Big Mac again.

“Missiles ready.” Blisters responded.

Tom looked anxiously around the cabin trying to understand what was happening, wondering why they would need machine guns and air-to-surface missiles. Before he could speak, Big Mac's voice cut across his thoughts.

“Circling Alpha now. Port side.”

Tom, seated on the left-hand-side of the aircraft, looked out of his window. The mist had parted revealing the structure five hundred feet or so below them. Except it was not the structure. It was nothing like it. It was more like a house. A large house in extensive grounds. There were lawns and ponds and fountains, and people running and shouting. Rock music coming from somewhere.
His
house! He had never seen it this close from the air before, but it must be his house.

Then the mist took the image away, and a voice brought him out of his day-dream.

“Closing at same altitude as target. Circling first to confirm.”

Tom looked across from his window. There it was, the security fence. About twenty feet of it sticking up out of the dense mist below with the two figures impaled upon it. But this was not at all as he remembered the scene from less than two days ago. In fact, the figures were not impaled; they were clinging to the wire in desperation. One of them was actually waving at the Lynx. And as the helicopter moved closer to them in decreasing circles, Tom almost fainted with shock.

The people on the wire were known to him; very well known. On the smaller of the two he saw the pale blue dress and white tights, torn and streaked red with blood from the wounds inflicted by the wire and the sea birds; the face turned towards him, the white-blonde hair blowing wildly above it. The eye sockets were not empty, and the eyes burned into him with a furious hatred. The waving figure, also ragged and bleeding, the pale clothing all but ripped completely away, gazed at him with a pleading expression. The gashed mouth formed the words in slow motion, inaudible above the roar of the engines, but unmistakable nonetheless.

“Please … help … me … Dad!”

Another barked order from the cockpit and then the deafening sound of the machine gun, just a couple of feet away from him. He watched the two figures jerking violently in their death throes as they were repeatedly hit, their screams loud enough to compete with the rotors and the gun.

“
Noooooo
!”

Tom was yelling in his agony of guilt and despair. He turned desperately to Jad for some sort of explanation, some rationale. But his friend was now lying on the floor of the Lynx. His beret had gone, he was covered by a sheet and his pallor and the thinness of his face had returned to how Tom remembered it just a few days ago.

“Better this way, Tom,” he said, tears in his eyes. “You said so yourself, or at least you thought it. They're the lucky ones; just a few days of torment, and then death…”

“
Noooooo
!”

Tom shouted again, lurching forward. Restraining arms were round his shoulders, a voice was calling his name.

“Tom! Tom!”

A woman's voice.

“Tom! Darling! What's wrong? Please,
please
, wake up!”

He was sitting up staring at a blank wall. The bedclothes had been thrown off and he was soaking wet with sweat. Mags was hugging him tightly from behind, her arms vice-like round his chest, both controlling and comforting, and her head on his shoulder pressed against his cheek. He was shaking and breathing heavily, but after a couple of minutes he began to relax.

“Bad dream,” he said.

“No! Really?” said Mags.

He lay back and she kissed him on the forehead, stroking his cheek and temple for a long time until he fully recovered. “Do you want to tell me what it was about – as if I couldn't guess?”

Tom did not reply at first. When he did it was in a voice trembling with pretended terror.

“Well, I was chasing Cheryl down this corridor,” he said. “She was throwing her clothes off as she ran and I was shouting after her, begging her to put them on again. She turned a corner…”

Mags stopped stroking his cheek and roughly grabbed and twisted his ear.

“And when I followed her round, there she was, stark naked, waiting for me! It was horrible. I guess I just panicked and shouted out.”

“What a remarkable coincidence,” said Mags. “I just had the same dream about Matty and this group of Munro-baggers chasing me. I was running down this corridor throwing off my …”

Tom turned to her and rolled her onto her back slipping one of his legs between hers.

“Right, you've asked for this,” he said.

“What again? But I haven't told you how my dream ended yet.”

*

Tom was awoken by Mags slipping into bed beside him, holding a mug of coffee. He lay quietly watching her as she sipped her drink, unaware that he was awake. He marvelled again at how beautiful she looked; how she never looked anything less under any circumstances, dressed for a ball or just emerging from a long, deep sleep. He placed his hand on her bare midriff under the duvet, causing her to start and almost spill her coffee.

She smiled across at him.

“Morning, Tom-Tom. No more nasty dreams?”

“Morning, darling. No more nasty dreams.”

“You never told me what it was really about,” she said, suddenly serious.

“Just what you thought, I guess. A hangover from Wednesday. You know, the images of the platform …”

That was as much as he wanted to say.

“Poor you,” she said, putting down her mug and snuggling up against him. They lay like that for a long time.

*

Week 2; Saturday, 4 April…

The land-line phone ringing on her bedside table woke Mags up. She grabbed at it, clumsily juggling with the handset for a few moments before pressing it to her ear.

“Oh, hi!” she said, turning to Tom, who was blinking himself awake. “Katey,” she mouthed at him.

“Just thought I'd phone to confirm that we've come through all the excitement completely unscathed,” said Katey.

“That's great,” said Mags. She gave a ‘thumbs-up' sign to Tom with her free hand. “Good time?”

“Yes, really good. Must have had about two hundred round all together. And live music, no less. Mickey got us this singer and one of the bands he manages. Lilli Bo-peep and Abattoir Ratts. I know them, actually. Really nice guys and they were absolutely brilliant, and did it for nothing – well they didn't charge
us
anything, anyway.”

“That's fantastic,” said Mags. She checked the time. “It's only nine-thirty. That's very early for a morning-after-party call. You actually woke us up.”

“Sorry about that. It went on ‘til about three o'clock, but nobody misbehaved. And Dad's heavies played it really low key, although there seemed to be more of them than usual. I don't know whether he'd drafted in reinforcements. But they behaved impeccably – tell him – didn't throw anybody out or beat anybody up or anything. Oh, except they did frog-march somebody back
in
when they thought he'd given them a false name or something; but it wasn't a problem. Jack seemed to thoroughly enjoy himself as well, although I haven't seen him yet this morning. Or Megan.”

“Megan! I see. Is this serious with Megan, do you think?”

“About as serious as my big brother can get, I reckon. Mind you, they had a bit of a fall-out last night. I think the singer has quite a thing for Jack and – well, you know what they're like – he didn't exactly discourage her. It must be pretty serious though, because he said he was going to bring her round to meet you both. She's really nice; you'll like her.”

“I'll look forward to that. Is Jason there?”

“No, he went home quite early – around midnight. Their house was broken into on Thursday during the day. They did about half-a-dozen other houses down their street at the same time. His mum's really shaken up so he didn't want to leave her alone all night.”

“Oh, that's a shame; poor woman. Did they take much?”

“Well, sadly, they don't have much to take, but it doesn't seem there was anything missing.”

“Oh well, I guess that's something to be thankful for – nothing stolen, I mean. Did everyone turn up who you were expecting?”

“Yes and a hell of a lot more. Well, actually, Mickey himself didn't show his face. Surprising, because he'd helped arrange it – I mean the band and that. No doubt we'll find out why when we see him. I don't expect the Home Secretary will be too disappointed at his absence,” she added. “Is he there?”

“Yes, right beside me. Where else would he be? But don't worry; he can't hear what you're saying.”

She looked at Tom, with wide conspiratorial eyes.

He laughed.

“Give Katey my love,” he mimed, then got out of bed and went downstairs.

“Anyway, what have you two been doing to make you sleep this long?” asked Katey. “And remember, I'm your daughter. I'm not expecting too much detail.”

Mags laughed.

“Well, put it down to the soporific properties of the Chardonnay and Talisker, and the expending of so much energy hiking.”

“And then there's the map-reading, of course,” said Katey. “I saw last weekend how much that was taking out of you both.”

Mags laughed again.

“By the way, Dad sends his love.”

“Thanks. What do you have planned for today?”

“More walking, hopefully. It's beautiful here, Katey. We must
all
come some time – including Jason – and, who knows, perhaps Megan as well.”

“Who knows? Anyway, must go and get dressed. Love to Dad. Bye, Mum.”

“Bye.”

She put down the phone just as Tom arrived carrying a tray.

“Right,” he said, handing Mags her coffee and slipping back into bed beside her. “I'll just drink this and then I'm ready for anything. And I mean absolutely
anything
!”

“Well drink up quickly, then,” she said. “And don't worry about burning your lips. I know exactly where you can cool them down.”

She took Tom's free hand and pulled it down under the duvet.

“Perhaps we should stay just like this until the helicopter picks us up,” he said.

“That's tomorrow,” said Mags, smiling broadly.

“I know, but we could always put it back a couple of days.”

*

Week 2; Sunday, 5 April…

The large man drumming his fingers on the desk looked very different in his dark grey suit, lilac shirt and purple-and-white striped tie. So much so that he seemed almost like an intruder in his own office, sitting in his own chair.

“So what have you got that's important enough for me to miss my weekly appointment with God?”

“I'm sorry, sir. It could have waited. When I called I didn't expect you to come straight away.”

“Not a problem, Inspector. There are enough decent baritones in the congregation without me. You might have to write me a note, though, so my wife doesn't think I've just skived off.”

The DI laughed.