“I had to kill a man Mary.”
There was a pause and her hand stopped moving for a second or two then resumed.
“Better him than you Davey.”
He raised his head and she saw his eyes were awash with tears.
“I don’t know if it’s the job for me you know.”
“Oh sure it is. You weren’t just lucky. You’re a strong, fast and determined man, just like your father.”
“I could have been killed.” He said and she looked him in the eyes.
“You weren’t though. You’re tired and you’ve had a hard time and you’d not be a good man if you didn’t have feelings like that and I married a good man.” He went to speak, but she put her finger to his lips.
“Go have a wash and we’ll get the tea on. We can talk when you’ve had a rest. Jack Fulton phoned and said you’d need time and TLC for a day or two. He said you’d not be going back on duty rota until November. Now go wash. You’re home now.” She took her finger away kissed it and put it back to his lips.”
He stood up and left the room, stopping to turn and blow her a kiss. When he had gone she crossed herself looked to the ceiling mouthed a ‘thank you’ and wiped the gathering tears from her eyes.
Chapter 73
Glasgow
6 p.m.
April 18th
It was a pleasant drive across to Ardrossan on the Atlantic coast. Clarky owned an ex army nineteen eighty- four Land Rover series three, used in Northern Ireland, but with the ‘mesh’ protection removed. It still had the ‘high velocity’ HV protection of the armoured wind shield. Clarky was very proud of it, though to make it less obtrusive he had re-sprayed it dark blue.
They had left Motherwell at four thirty in the afternoon. The A72 took them out of red brick and house crowded Motherwell onto the A71 and they traversed Scotland westwards into the pretty green fields of Ayrshire. The Ayrshire dairy cows scattered amongst the greenery flashed a camouflage pattern across Stanton’s eyes as a steady fifty miles an hour took the two men in mutual silence into Kilmarnock.
Cold as it was getting in the pre night cooling Stanton felt the warmth and comfort of the Landy’s heaters and felt cocooned behind the strong metal and the bullet proof glass. Ahead of him were some unknown dangers, the usual companions in his otherwise single existence, and several times he looked at Clarky thinking of their Legion days, the brutal punishments and harsh training which had hardened their bodies and the bloody deeds that had hardened their minds. For a moment warm and calm he reflected that it might be time to quit, but at just over an hour they entered the outskirts of Ardrossan and Stanton felt his destiny inexorable draw him back into the ‘game’.
As Clarky pulled up in the Ardrossan town railway station car park he turned to his friend.
“Here we are. The marina is up that way.” Clarky pointed up Prince’s Street.
The moment was pregnant with unspoken thoughts. Neither man wanted to impose his thoughts on the other, but both sensed the other’s fears.
They had trained together and served in the First Foreign Cavalry Regiment and seen action in the first Gulf war. After their short, but intensive Legion training he and Clarky had found themselves in the Persian Gulf in September of 1990. Both had left the Legion around the same time; Clarky had made senior corporal and yet of the two only Stanton had seen the carnage of Rwanda, in his case a special transfer.
Having left the Land Rover both men stood looking at each other.
“Is this mission sacred?” Clarky volunteered echoing the Legionnaires’ code.
“No not really. No honour and no fidelity I’m afraid.”
Clarky suddenly stepped forward and embraced Stanton. Stanton somewhat unwillingly embraced his old comrade.
“We are still family you and I. We are still brothers.” Clarky said. “Take the boat, but whatever the prize at the end of this ‘mission’ is you must consider sailing away.”
“I’ll think about it, take care of your self my friend." Stanton replied and then he watched Clarky get into the dark blue light armoured vehicle and drive away with the lowering sun on its back window.
This moment defined him; always alone. As an orphan his only family had been the Legion and after that there had been no-one. He shrugged off the thoughts and claimed new ones, those of stealing a boat.
It was half five as Stanton headed for the station cafe; in a bag Clarky had given him were his weapon, still in the plastic bag, tools and a map of the area. He ordered coffee from the half hearted woman behind the till and sat in the dim light on a high stool in the corner of the small empty room.
The map showed him the marina and its sea ward entrance. He knew that he couldn’t simply take a boat. He would be spotted, even after dark. Looking at the landscape he saw a better plan. To the north of the marina was Mariner’s View which had a path towards the end of which was the northern half of the narrow marina entrance. Stanton felt sure that if he could wait on a boat leaving, in the dark, he could drop into the water and steal aboard the boat from that point, as it passed. He sipped his coffee and wondered on the likelihood of a boat going out at night from the Marina into the uncertain waters of the Firth of Clyde. His plan B was to swim the marina from that point and climb aboard a boat after dark, circumventing the watchman and the locked jetties. There was no ‘gate’ to the sea and though sailing out under motor power was noisy he felt sure he could get away with the night to cover him and the loss of the boat wouldn’t be noticed until morning.
His coffee finished Stanton walked up Prince’s Street and up to the marina. There was little activity. He looked at the usual security systems, metal spiked gates and punch code entry systems. There was a marina office with a watch man and CCTV pointing only towards the boats, sitting like white sardines tied to floating wooden jetties. Stanton noted the CCTV angles with DIC in mind. He thought of Spencer.
He looked across the harbour to Mariners Walk scoping for witnesses. There were four cars parked there, but no-one walking the path.
Ten minutes later he found himself on the spit of land along Marina’s walk as the sun began to set slowly. To his surprise and annoyance, as it was still light, he saw a boat pulling away from the jetty furthest south, a man at the back had just cast off and was heading for the wheel house. It was a long white and blue ocean going cruiser. Stanton looked around, scanning the cars parked behind him and looking for people nearby. An elderly couple had left their car parked and had walked past him, intent on the sunset, two minutes before he got there. They were standing at the seaward edge with their backs to him.
The boat slowly rippled its way to the entrance. Stanton knew it was his only chance for plan A. He looked down into the Marina waters by the wall below him. The sunset cast shadow into the dog leg of the wall and entrance spit. He looked around one more time and thinking of the buffer buoys on the side of the nearing boat he dropped into the water feet first with a well practised lack of splash and barely surfacing his head, submerged from the nose down he hugged the shadowy corner ready to spring.
On the harbour wall the old man looked around wondering if he had just seen something or not. His wife’s warm mitten gripping his cold bare hand took his mind away from the thought and back to the sunset.
In the wheel house of the boat Kevan Dean, the boat’s owner, was momentarily distracted by his passenger, a buyer for the boat whom he was unhappily taking for an impromptu trip. The man had called earlier in the after noon and had arranged to take a short sail around four, but the man, a banker named Griffith, who’d travelled from Inverness that day, had been very late. Dean needed to sell the boat and Griffith clearly had the money to buy it. Happy or not Dean agreed to take him for a half hour trip. Luck was on Stanton’s side as Dean was in such a hurry that he hadn’t pulled in the bump buoys, such was his keenness to get out and come back quickly. Griffith had asked about the controls and looking briefly away from the harbour entrance Dean missed Stanton’s drop and, too busy focussing on his exit point, he gave no thought to the now empty harbour wall, though the missing figure, noted a moment before, jarred his reality before priority thinking glossed it over.