The Glory Boys (22 page)

Helen came in, no knock, walked across the room and peered past his shoulder at the pictures.

'Those the clever pair, causing all the fuss?'

'Those are the ones.'

'And you've set the big, bad Jimmy loose after them?'

'Slipped his collar, right.'

'And how good are they, compared with our Jimmy-boy?'

'They'll do all right. They'll give him a good run, he won't have to worry about that. He'll get his full out of them.'

'And then they'll send him home in one piece?'

'Probably,' Jones said. Before she went back to the outer office he saw the whiteness of her cheeks. Should have taken it more gently. But it was the one point that nagged at him, worrying at his composure as to whether Jimmy would beat these two at the close quarters where he was certain they would meet. It was difficult to believe in the danger if he stared at the face with the close mesh of curled hair the police artist and the eye-witnesses had given to it.

To find the real man he had to go to the file, and that was still sparse and without flesh to hang on the skeleton information they had so far accumulated.

He took a drawing pin from his desk drawer and used it to hang the Arab's picture on the wall beside his filing cabinet. Where he could see it at any time he wanted, where he could study it, learn from it, understand it.

The effect on McCoy was less violent than on Famy. The Arab looked with ill-concealed horror at the pictures blazoned across the front pages of the papers. They were standing outside a small newsagent's shop in South West London beside a bus stop where they hoped to board the transport they needed to return to the inner suburbs. The pictures had been blown-up hugely, and in the squat popular papers covered half the front page. There were banner headlines, screaming at them across the pavement:

'The Killers', 'The Most Wanted Men in Britain', 'Have You Seen These Men?'

'Don't bloody gawp at them,' hissed McCoy in Famy's ear.

it was that note-book. The one that we left behind, that is where they have taken it from,' said Famy.

'Bullshit. They'll have talked in the commune. Got my name there. That's a Northern Ireland picture of me, taken when I was nicked. They've got an artist to do yours from all the descriptions. It's not particularly good, yours.'

it is sufficient for them to discard many men. They have given a height, and a weight, the general detail. Not adequate for a positive identification, but enough to come close. And they have the clothes, the trousers and shirt that we still wear . . . '

'Get back, can't you? There's no place better for anyone to spot you than if you're pressed tight up against the damn thing.'

'They have no name on me,' Famy said, as he moved away from the shop front and the two men resumed their position at the back of the queue.

Famy felt the uncertainty again that had dogged him throughout his first hours in London. It should not have been happening in this way. They should have been safe and secure in the house, not needing to venture out, dependent on the Irishman for their supplies. There was to have been no question of them hanging about in crowded streets; orders had been specific on that point. Every time a man or woman or child turned to him he imagined the dawning of recognition, and he shuffled his feet, attempting, badly, to maintain a casual, relaxed front. How do people make the recognition? he wondered. How can they translate something so distant from their lives as a wanted picture in a newspaper into the flesh-and-blood beside them on the street? It's a difficult and long step to take, Famy told himself. It would take great certainty, requiring a person to peer again and again to convince himself he were right, and that there was more than similarity with a picture he had merely glanced at.

To McCoy it was a less awesome experience. He was accustomed to having his picture in the front pocket of the bottle-green RUC uniforms and the camouflage tunics of British soldiers. He was familiar with life on the run, avoiding capture under the very eyes of men who had studied his features. But he realized a fundamental danger in their present position. The newspapers put two men together, identified them as a partnership, and that was how they were travelling, in tandem, linked to each other.

But isolated, moving as loners, how much safer they would be. It was turning over in his mind when the single-decker green bus pulled in at the stop, and the queue moved forward. They must separate, but where to? It was easy enough for him, but what to do with the Arab? Couldn't have him wandering the streets solo, insecure and liable to panic. So what to do with him? There was no immediate answer, only a vague plan, slowly taking shape.

McCoy bought the tickets from the bus driver, and they made their way to the back seats where they would be behind the other passengers, where their faces would suffer least exposure. Famy had the grip-bag, containing a selection of both their clothes, and the rifles, magazines and grenades. It was heavy, and the handle straps strained against the metal hoops that held them to the framework of the bag. His own case had been left in the boot of the Escort, packed with some of his own clothes, some of Famy's. The car itself was off the road in the woods that surrounded the Surrey town of Esher. It would be difficult to find, and he had prised off the number plates, throwing them far into the undergrowth. The ground had been hard, the tyre marks slight, and anyway they had brushed the ground with hazel saplings, leaving a light scuff covering the trail of the wheels.

As the bus made its way toward Hampton Court the two men sat in silence, McCoy working on his next move, Famy suffering from the tension of having seen the photograph and the drawings. By the time they had become locked in the traffic flow McCoy spoke, low and direct, talking from the side of his mouth and close to Famy's ear.

'We have to separate today. The danger lies in us being together.'

There was startled surprise on the other's face, the flash in the eyes that suggests the feeling of being betrayed.

McCoy saw it.

'There's nothing for you to worry about. But we have to be apart for today at least. There are eight more hours till darkness, when we should meet again.'

Famy turned his head, the tightly clamped lips giving warning of his suspicion. 'Where would I go? What do I do?' he said.

'I don't know yet. We can talk about it. But we have to get apart. The two of us together is too much of a risk.'

'We could have stayed with the car in the woods . . .'

McCoy cut into him, anxious lest he should lose control and sacrifice the initiative to the Arab.

it would have been possible. But we could not take another car there, and we have to change motors. We have to get a car in the town. In the country they can block you too easily; it would be reported faster.'

Famy did not reply.

'Look, you silly bugger,' McCoy was talking quickly, urgently - 'I've told you I'm in this with you. You don't have to worry. I'm not bolting on you. It's a judgement I've made, and a necessary one. Am I going to ditch on you now? Think about it. After the girl, after taking you to the guns, am I going to bunk out?'

Famy nodded. He was exhausted from four nights without adequate sleep; there was no spirit in him for argument.

'Where do we get off?' the Arab asked.

'Further on there's a town - about another fifteen minutes. There's tubes and trains there, cinemas. Whatever you want.'

'And you, where will you go?'

Famy saw the hesitation, and had the ability to sense a lie.

'I'll just iose myself for a few hours,' McCoy said, 'till the night has gone. Till we can meet up and get a car.'

Again the Arab had no reply. A sense of loneliness and isolation welled up inside him. How far could he trust the Irishman? He was unsure now, certain there was a further reason for the split, certain that he was not being confided in. What could he do? On a bus, where ears would flap and quicken if he raised his voice? He was powerless.

Five stops later McCoy rose out of his seat and went down the length of the aisle. Famy took his cue and followed. Then they were out on the pavement, amid people who hurried past them, intent on their own business. The two men stood for a moment before McCoy saw a tea bar down the road and across the street, and began to walk toward it.

'Just round the corner and up the main street, that's where the cinemas are. There's one there that shows three films, separate theatres, all divided up. That'll lose you for some time, and it's dark in there, you'll be okay. We'll meet back in the tea bar. Eight o'clock. Now don't just walk around, get somewhere like the cinema and bloody-well stay there.'

Famy looked at him as they went in through the door of the cafe, quizzing McCoy with his eyes, searching for the truth of the other man's decision. He found no answer.

When McCoy left the grip-bag and its contents stayed with Famy. 'Safer with you,' he'd said, 'tucked under your legs in the cinema. Out of harm's way, better than me lugging them around.'

He ducked out into the sunlight, and vanished beyond the doorway, hurrying along the pavements, side-stepping to avoid the crowds of lunch-time shoppers. Free of the bugger, he thought to himself. Free at last without the nursemaid millstone round my neck and pulling down.

The relief at being on his own again flowed through him, a river that has broken a dam and finds again the dry stone bed, its expression rampant and without check. He was half-running when he reached the supermarket.

McCoy went inside, through the electrically-controlled glass sliding doors. The cash registers, a bank of them where the girls punched the keys and took the money, were at the far end. He took a basket, put a single bar of chocolate in it, something that would stave off the hurting pain of hunger, and walked down past the stacked counters and shelves to the queue that had formed for the privilege of paying. He watched the girl as she deftly handled the bags and packages and tins, eyes never on the customer she served, always on what she took from the wire baskets and put down on the flat surface beside her, while her hands played the numbers on the machine. Her face was set, expressionless, dedicated to the task of extracting the right money, giving the right change.

When he put the basket down the slim hand was there in an instant, pulling clear the chocolate, while the girl mouthed the amount that showed on her machine, as a tiny row of trading stamps reached out from the mechanism.

'Hello, Norah,' he said, very quietly, conscious of the people behind him bustling and impatient at being delayed.

She looked up at him. There was startled recognition, then fear, like a rabbit's because she was sitting down and he loomed above her. Taut, strained, wide eyes pierced into him. The will to say something but no voice.

'I have to see you.' He angled the words to give the stress of dependence, and waited for her to react.

'What are you doing here?' Bewilderment, but conspiracy also, hushed so that the words would carry no further than the two of them.

'I have to see you,' he repeated the words, only with greater insistence. 'Outside, make an excuse. I have to be with you this afternoon. I'll be outside and waiting.' He put down two ten-pence coins, the amount shown on the cash machine, took the chocolate and walked back out on to the street.

On the far side of the street he waited. Twenty minutes, perhaps, then she was there looking for a gap in the traffic.

Blouse and jeans instead of the overall she wore for her work. Just before she saw the opportunity to cross she looked across to where he stood. His smile was not returned, and then she was concentrating on the cars and the lorries.

He took her hand. Soft, small, fitting inside his fist. He kissed her without pressure on the side of the cheek, and felt her drag herself back from him.

'You didn't tell me inside there. What are you doing here?'

'I've come to see you.' Inadequate, need more than that.

'You've seen the picture. You're in the papers, on the telly.'

'I know.'

'Well, what have you come here for?'

'I wanted to see you, girl. I wanted to be with you. I wanted . ..' He did not finish. What could he tell her, that he had to get away from it? That he wasn't just a machine, a killing apparatus. That there was a need for a break, to get away from the awfulness of the running, from the concealment and the chase and the ultimate confrontation. There was a girl on the farm near Cully-hanna, and a place in the gorse and bracken on Mullyash Mountain where she would go with him and let him talk to her and love her and relax with her, till the sleep came and the understanding. Then he could go back to his war.

But how to tell the little shop girl from South West London that a man who fights must one time fall asleep in arms that hold no danger? That the time comes when the company of men is repulsive and rejected? Another day beside that bloody man and he'd come to loathe him, not through any fault of the Arab's. McCoy knew there was no fault in him. But it did not lessen the need to escape, and to exist again in the world which he had denied himself.

'I needed to talk to you, somewhere where we could be alone,' he said.

They walked together through the town and into the vast open expanse of the Royal Park. There were roads that cut across the landscape, leaving great segments of virgin ground covered by sprouting grass, and the delicate-shaped fronds of the bracken, where the sun shone down.

And there were woods where the birches and oaks filtered the light and cast a haze of shadow. It was as he had wanted. He had found what he sought.

They went deep into the bracken, along a path used only by the big red deer that scampered and leapt as they approached, making good their escape. He put his coat down on the broken stems and they sat together. There was no horizon beyond the immediate wall of green that surrounded them, hiding them from all eyes. McCoy sank on to his back, reaching up with his arms and pulling the girl down on to his chest. Her head rested underneath his chin, and against his mouth he could feel the strands of her hair, and there was a scent to them, freshly washed and clean. They lay there a long time, and his thoughts were of the hill farms, and the other girl who was dark and more heavily built and who comprehended the need for release that overwhelmed him, and of the buzzards that would circle and swoop above them across the hills of Armagh County.