‘You just need practice,’ said Allan. ‘You’re not trained in quick-draw. In the Killing House you go in with guns blazing, not stuck in underarm holsters.’ He slapped Cramer on the back. ‘You’ll be fine, Mike. Trust me. Come on, back to the starting position.’ Allan, Martin and Cramer went back to their end of the tennis courts while the three other SAS men regrouped.
Cramer slipped his PPK back into the holster, then tried drawing it quickly. It snagged on the pocket of his jacket and he cursed. As he tried again he saw the Colonel open the gate in the tall wire-mesh fence which surrounded the three tennis courts.
The Colonel walked across the red clay playing surface. ‘How’s it going?’ he called.
Cramer pulled a face. ‘Twenty-three runs and I’ve taken a bullet every time.’
‘You don’t have much longer to practice. The photographs have arrived in Miami. They’ll be sent by courier tomorrow. The money is being transferred through the banking system.’
‘I’ll be ready.’
‘Good. The profiler will be here tomorrow. Then you leave for London.’
Cramer shrugged his shoulders inside the coat. ‘I’m going to need a few more rehearsals. I’ve got to get my reaction time down.’
The Colonel nodded and tapped his stick on the playing surface, hard enough to dent the clay. ‘There’s been another killing. In South Africa.’
‘He gets around, doesn’t he? Have gun, will travel.’
‘There’s no turning back now, Joker.’ There was a flat finality about his words, a coldness Cramer hadn’t heard before, as if he was already distancing himself.
The boy heard his mother’s screams as he opened the front door. He fought the impulse to pull the door shut and run away as he stood on the threshold listening to the animal-like cries of pain. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the door-jamb. The screams stopped and the boy sighed deeply. He closed the door as quietly as he could but the lock clicked and his mother called out his name. The boy dropped his book-filled carrier bag on the floor and climbed the stairs with a heavy heart.
His mother was curled up on the bed, her arms wrapped around her legs, tears streaming down her cheeks. The boy stood by the bedroom door, watching her. ‘I can’t take any more of this,’ she said.
‘You’ll get better, Mum,’ he said.
‘No, I won’t,’ she said.
‘You will. I know you will.’
‘It hurts,’ she said, curling up into a tighter ball.
She was so thin, the boy realised. Her arms were like sticks and the skin seemed to be stretched tight across her face. But she was still his mum. ‘Shall I call the doctor?’ he asked, his voice trembling.
‘The doctor can’t help,’ she said. ‘He can’t make the hurt go away.’ Her breath started coming in short gasps as if she was having trouble breathing.
‘Do you want me to get you some milk?’ His mother shook her head. ‘What about something to eat?’
‘You have to help me,’ she pleaded.
‘I will,’ he said. ‘I will, Mum. I’ll do anything to make you better.’
She shook her head again. ‘You can’t make me better,’ she said. She fixed him with her tear-filled eyes. ‘But you can stop the hurting. You have to get me my medicine.’
Dermott Lynch woke instantly at the sound of the shower being turned on. At first he couldn’t remember where he was, the wallpaper with its yellow flowers and the ruffles on the curtains gave the bedroom a feminine feel and there was a fluffy white bear on the dressing table which stared at him with blue glass eyes. Sun streamed in through the thin curtains and then he heard someone step into the shower. Marie Hennessy. Lynch looked at his watch. It was just before nine o’clock but he’d only slept for a few hours. Marie had kept him up late, talking over old times, begging him to tell her stories about her mother and father.
Lynch had taken care to sanitise what he told her. While her parents had both died for the IRA, Marie had never shown any interest in joining the organisation and Lynch didn’t think she knew the full extent of their involvement. Liam Hennessy had been an adviser to Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, during several bombing campaigns on the mainland during the late Eighties. He had also been the driving force behind the bomb attack on the Brighton hotel which had come close to taking the life of the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Following the death of Liam Hennessy, his wife Mary had assumed an even more active role, going underground and taking part in several high profile bombings, or spectaculars as the IRA Army Council liked to call them. A lot of people had died.
He sat up in bed and rubbed his face with his hands. It still felt strange without the beard, as if the skin belonged to someone else, but he was pleased with the shorter hair as he no longer had to keep pushing it out of his eyes. He leant over the side of the bed and put his hand on the pistol to reassure himself that it was still there. He got out of bed and was about to pull the curtains aside when he had second thoughts. The flat was overlooked by the houses on the other side of the road and it would be smarter not to let the neighbours know that Marie had had a visitor. It was warm in the bedroom and Lynch suddenly remembered the body in the boot of the Ford Sierra, parked down below. It would soon start to smell and it would only take one curious passer-by to have the whole area flooded with police.
The bedroom door opened and he turned to see Marie standing there, swathed in a purple towel, her hair dripping wet. She showed no embarrassment at his nakedness, and in fact it was Lynch who blushed. ‘Shower’s free,’ she said brightly.
Lynch stood with his hands across his groin like a footballer in a defensive wall. ‘Great, thanks,’ he said.
Marie’s grin widened and she raised one eyebrow. For a moment it looked as if she was going to say something else, but then she turned and left him alone.
Lynch went into the bathroom and locked the door before running the shower. Above the washbasin was a mirrored cabinet and he stared carefully at his own reflection. He ran a hand through his hair, wondering what else he could do to change his appearance. Marie hadn’t recognised him but the man in the van clearly had, despite the absence of a beard and the wire-framed glasses. He opened the cabinet door and looked inside: aspirins, contact lens cleaning solution, bottles containing different coloured contact lenses, cotton-wool balls, tweezers, a bottle of witchhazel, and several packets of contraceptive pills. ‘Tut, tut, Marie, a good Catholic girl like you,’ Lynch muttered to himself. She was a fine looking girl, and Lynch couldn’t help but wonder who she was sleeping with and what she was like between the sheets.
The coloured contact lenses were a good idea but he had perfect eyesight and whatever Marie’s prescription, they’d be an irritant if he tried to wear them. What he’d really hoped to find was hair dye.
He closed the cabinet door and stared at his reflection again. He looked younger without the facial hair, and the glasses made him resemble a vicar welcoming the faithful to a church garden party. There was a sudden knock on the door. ‘Tea or coffee, Dermott?’ called Marie.
‘Coffee. You don’t dye your hair, do you?’
There was a short pause as if Marie was trying to work out why he’d asked the question. Then realisation must have dawned. ‘No,’ she said through the door. ‘But I can get you some stuff from the local chemist, if you want. After breakfast.’
Lynch smiled to himself. Smart and beautiful. Just like her late mother.
Martin was tucking into a cooked breakfast when Cramer walked into the dining hall. His plate was piled high with sausages, bacon and scrambled eggs and there was a stack of buttered toast on a side plate. Martin winked, and raised his coffee mug in salute.