"Excuse me, lads," said Wisbeach mildly, turning to them.
"Bit of an accident.
Do you mind filling up these glasses?"
The three looked round, incredulous and sniggering.
"Fuck off, Grandpa," said the heaviest, whose doughy features were topped by a greasy centre parting.
Bloody hell, thought Alex. Here we go.
"Forget it, Frank," he called out across the room.
But the ex-NCO was not of a mind to forget it, and placed the spilt drinks carefully on the bar.
"Come on, lads," he said, the ghost of a smile touching his features.
"Don't let's spoil the evening with bad manners.
At waist level, where the barman couldn't have seen it even if he'd been looking, there was the flash of a blade.
"You heard me," said greasy-head.
"Now fuck oil!"
Wisbeach frowned, as if disappointed. Then a heavy-knuckled hand shot out, grabbed the knife-wielder's neck and squeezed hard. There was a moment's absolute stillness. The Baha Boys boomed on the jukebox.
Wisbeach's knuckles tightened. The knife dropped to the floor and its owner's mouth snapped convulsively open, issuing a spray of half-chewed potato crisps and phlegm on to Wisbeach's sleeve.
The ex-NCO grinned.
"Good here, isn't it?" he said to the other two louts. His tone was conversational. For the first time that evening, thought Alex, the old bugger looked genuinely cheerful.
As anoxia kicked in, greasy-head's eyes crossed, the shiny nylon of his Adidas track pants darkened with urine and he sank half-conscious to his knees.
When Wisbeach finally released him he lay retching and sobbing on the floor beneath the bar. If the barman had noticed anything, he showed no sign of having done so.
"Two pints please, lads," Wisbeach said quietly, addressing the two survivors of the incident.
"You can bring them over to our table."
Stunned by the sight of their leader's humiliation, they nodded their agreement.
"Better?" Alex smiled when they had taken delivery of their drinks.
"Much," said Wisbeach. He leaned forward.
"Listen, son, don't go around saying you got this from me, but if you really want to know about Joe Meehan, the person to talk to is Denzil Connolly. Denzil was on one of those Khmer Rouge RWW training packages with me a really shit-hot instructor and he was in charge of Meehan at Tregaron before they dropped him over the water or whatever the hell they did with the poor sod. The two of them spent two or three months living in each others' pockets. So if anyone knew him..."
"Any idea where I'll find Connolly?"
"Sorry, mate. Not a clue."
Alex nodded and the two men drank their beers in silence.
"Want another?" asked Alex eventually.
"I won't, thanks," Wisbeach replied.
"I've got a couple more hours' driving."
He stood up, gaunt and tall, and extended a hand to Alex.
"Fuck of a business, son.
"Yours or mine?"
The ex-NCO smiled.
"Watch yourself, OK?"
FIFTEEN.
Five minutes later Alex was walking towards Hereford city centre. The encounter had depressed him, Don Hammond's funeral was tomorrow and he felt like cheering himself up.
As he left the outskirts of the city the streets got busier. There was a slight drizzle but this hadn't deterred the good-time crowd and noisy groups were swinging from bar to bar along the shining pavements, anxious to pour their salaries down their throats as rapidly and with as much shouting and laughter as possible. As the noise and the Friday night smell of beer and cheap perfume swallowed him up, Alex felt his spirits lift. A fat blonde girl winked at him and her friends giggled and screeched he recognised them as part of the troopy-groupie crowd that often hung out at The Inkerman in the hope of being 'trapped' by young SAS troopers.
"Yo, Alex!" It was Andy Maddocks from "D' Squadron and Lance Wilford of the RWW, dressed to kill in their civvy going-out clothes.
"Hey!" said Alex, moving out of the way of the lurching crowd on the pavement.
"What are you flash buggers doing back here?"
"Big turnaround after the hostage-rescue," said Andy Maddocks.
"They're sending another squadron out next week."
"And the RWW team?"
Lance Wilford shrugged.
"You disappeared, Don's dead, Ricky Sutton's having his arse mended in hospital... I guess they felt they ought to send in a new lot. Give the SL government their money's worth."
Alex nodded.
"They pulled me out for a liaison job," he told the other two men in answer to their unspoken question.
"I'm up here for Don's funeral tomorrow."
The others nodded soberly and then, brightening, Maddocks turned to Alex.
"Why notjoin us for a few bev vies. And possibly a chat about the weather with a trio of nymphomaniac nurses, preferably still in their uniforms?"
"And suspender-belts," added Lance wistfully.
"Sounds good to me," said Alex.
A few minutes later they were crammed into a smoky corner table with pints in front of them. Andy, unwilling to waste time, was craning his head from side to side, looking for spare women.
"I thought you were married, Andy," murmured Alex.
"Separated. Wendy bin ned me when the squadron got back from Kosovo."
"Any particular reason?"
"Mental cruelty's what she told the lawyer. Which I suppose is as good a way as any of saying that she was shagging a foot baller
"A foot baller. You're kidding?"
"No, she and some friend of hers who goes out with one of the reserves took to going to all the United home games. With predictable fucking consequences.
"Manchester United?" asked Lance.
"No, you womble, Hereford United."
Lance reflected.
"I was going to say, if it'd been a Man U player it'd almost've been worth it. I'd let Ryan Giggs shag my wife."
"You haven't got a wife. Giggsy wouldn't want to shag any woman that'd marry you. What'd he want to bother with some slag from..."
"Are you calling my future wife a slag?"
"Well, she is, isn't she? Be honest."
They all laughed, Lance loudest of all.
This is good, thought Alex. This is real.
"So, do you reckon you'll be getting any Hereford United tickets?" Lance asked, after a short drinking break.
He ducked just in time to avoid Andy's fist.
"Where did the mental cruelty come in?" asked Alex.
"Told Wendy I didn't want kids," said Andy.
"Couldn't bear the thought of having a son or a daughter who lost its dad. It's one thing being killed, it's another lying there knowing you're going to break your child's heart.
"So why d'you marry her in the first place?"
"Price she put on her virtue. No white dress, no snakeysnakey."
Alex nodded.
"Where did you go on your honeymoon?"
"Belfast," said Andy.
"With the rest of the squadron... Lance, mate, I think we're in business. Go and ask those three to come over. Her in the blue top and the two with her."
"Why me? You go!"
"You're a fucking corporal, now get your arse over there." Alex would have said it was impossible to get anyone else round the table but somehow the three managed to jam themselves in. One of them, a cheerful, round-faced girl with what Frank Wisbeach would without question have called 'comfy tits', was practically sitting on his knee.
"Whassat?" she asked, squirming uncomfortably.
"My mobile," said Alex apologetically.
"What's your name?"
"Gail," said the girl, snapping her lighter beneath a king-size Pall Mall. She smelt of make-up and Pernod and synthetic perfume and her hair inches from his face was a curtain of wheatish blonde, as flat as if it had been ironed. Next to him, Andy Maddocks was very seriously informing the girl in the blue top that the three of them were gay.