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Ray fixed his gaze on the gunmetal grey of the prison’s iron door and waited for it to open. At first he had sat in the relative warmth of the car. Now he stood impatiently, arms folded against the December chill, the wind whipping at his hair and stinging his eyes. He had been up since dawn, watching every minute pass until the afternoon and had arrived half an hour earlier than he needed to. Now Bodie was half an hour late and a sudden darkness had fallen as the distant mid-Winter sun disappeared.
When he had first come here it had been June. Hot and cloudless and impossible to believe Bodie would see only one hour of daylight that day. Impossible to believe he would share the scrap of rationed sunshine with thieves and rapists and murderers. Real murderers.
It was winter now, and out here, away from the town, the cold set in quickly. The last time he had seen him, Bodie said the cells were perishing. Bitter cold. Ray had left the heater on in the flat so it would be warm when they got home. They would probably find the place burnt to ashes. This was exactly how their luck was going.
A doomy clang of bolts and locks announced the prison door opening. A moment later Bodie finally appeared. Finally.
He shook hands with the guard who escorted him, raised a hand to greet Ray and did not turn when the door slammed shut behind him.
Bodie wore the grey suit and white shirt he had put on for the last day of his court case. His tie was perfectly knotted, unlike on that day when, between the two of them, they could not muster a steady enough hand for a halfway decent job.
Bodie’s smile was warm as he made his way through the parked cars to Ray. His smile even reached his eyes, a place it had deserted these last six months. Ray folded him into his arms as soon as he was within reach.
They held each other in a fiercely tight and, on Ray’s part, long-imagined hug. For all of Bodie’s wandering hands and his own more guarded expressions of affection, they had never hugged before. Hugging wasn’t very CI5, after all. But through these last months when the only decoration on the pistachio green walls of the visitors’ room was a sign saying ‘no physical contact,’ this hug had become a private goal of Ray’s. And he didn’t care how nancy it was; he was bloody well not letting go if he could help it.
Bodie did not seem inclined to let go either. He had let his forehead drop into the crook of Ray’s neck and buried his face in his jacket. Ray’s old red tartan seemed to carry with it the residue of a hundred stakeouts and fire fights. There was something of the inside of the capris about it, of smoky pubs and greasy spoons, the sofa in the CI5 rest room and the polished wood and leather of George Cowley’s office furniture. No matter that Ray regularly shepherded it to the drycleaners, it seemed always to have its history woven into its fabric. A history Bodie was determined to breathe in.
Bodie’s suit smelled like carbolic soap and the inside of a locked cupboard. So did Bodie for that matter. It was time to go, and Ray reluctantly released him.
“Home, James?”
“Absolutely,” Bodie said, gripping Ray’s arms. “I don’t think much of the service in this hotel.”
“Yeah,” Doyle said, opening the car door for him. “I heard it was being knocked down to a four star.”
Bodie was still smiling as they drove out of the grounds. He did not spare the prison a final glance, but Ray, turning once, saw it silhouetted in the afternoon darkness like an animal preparing to pounce.
Bodie pointed at the dashboard. “Oi, this is my car. Bloody hell, would you jump in my grave that quick?” Ray shot him a guilty grin. “What happened? Did you blow yours up again?”
He got a few minutes reprieve before he had to answer that one.
“Where are we going?” Bodie asked later when they had negotiated the winding road through the moors and Ray missed the turning for London.
Bodie knew the moment the foreman of the jury announced the guilty verdict, he ceased to be an employee of CI5. As soon as he lost his job, he lost his flat. He did not know that Ray himself had stayed an employee of CI5 for approximately four minutes after Bodie had been escorted from dock to prison van. Four minutes was as long as it took to find an unsurprised Cowley in the confusion of the milling courtroom, throw down his ID, give up his service weapon, and resign without notice.
The upshot of those four minutes of high drama was he also became jobless, homeless and, incidentally, car-less with both his own and Bodie’s goods and chattels to deal with.
Sometimes Ray thought there was a special working of gravity keeping him and Bodie from ever straying too far apart. When he found out where Bodie was to be held, he rented a flat in the nearest town, packed up the one non-CI5 car they had between them with whatever would fit, and drove there within the week. It could have been Neptune; he probably still would have gone.
“Ray?”
“Plymouth.”
“Did you quit the squad?” Bodie asked after a moment of frowning deduction.
“I couldn’t stay, Bodie.”
“Ah Ray, why did you do it? You had a good job there, a future.”
“You had a good job and a future, and Cowley stood by and watched you go to jail for doing your job. How am I supposed to work for an organisation like that?”
“Cowley did what he could, you know he did. But when it comes to a choice between the existence of CI5 and one operative, there’s no choice really.”
“It was never as clear cut as that. It was pure politics, and he could have done more. He should have.”
“Well, he got me out eighteen months early. That’s not nothing.”
“You had to serve a sentence. You’ve still got a conviction on your record, Bodie. A conviction for manslaughter.”
“You don’t have to remind me. But it’s always a possibility in our line. An innocent man died. One of the ones we were supposed to protect, and I shot him.”
“He died because a pack of terrorists hijacked an embassy, and it only got this far because he had an ambassador for a dad. If it had been some poor sod off an estate, no one would have tried to shut down CI5, and you wouldn’t have been put up as the scapegoat.”
“I think you should go and get your job back,” Bodie said stubbornly. “That’s all.”
Ray regretted the argument. “Sorry mate. Let’s not talk about it now.”
Ray had rented a furnished flat in Plymouth. It was cheap and shabby but had a good-sized living room overlooking a scrap of park. The first bedroom was a double, and the second a box room with enough space for a single bed and little else. That morning Ray had moved his clothes out of the double and Bodie’s in, making the bed with new sheets.
“You’ve been living here all this time?” Bodie asked as Ray showed him the flat.
“Yeah.” He pointed to the bathroom. “There should be loads of hot water if you want it, and then there’s a pub down the road that does the best steaks, and I’ve been saving the barmaid for you.”
“What have you been doing for work?”
“Security guard,” Ray admitted. Bodie looked horrified.
“Say it isn’t so, mate.”
“It’s not so bad, on Tuesdays I cover the lingerie department.”
“I see,” Bodie said knowingly. “You stand around in women’s underwear.”
Ray went to pour them both drinks, and when he returned to the living room, Bodie had wandered to the window. He was looking out at the landscape of skeletal trees and the housing complex just beyond, nothing more now than grey outlines and a dot-to-dot of lights.
His hair was shorter than it should be, and he had lost too much weight, but his soldierly stature was undiminished by what he had been through. Ray’s heart caught unexpectedly.
“I joined the merchant navy out of Plymouth,” Bodie said.
“Yeah? Not Liverpool?”
Bodie shrugged. “There was a ship due to leave that took me on,” he pressed his forehead to the glass as though he expected to see it returning for him.
Ray joined Bodie at the window. They tapped their glasses together, and Bodie made a show of savouring his first sip of whisky.
“I’m probably going to be unconscious on one glass after six months dry.”
Their eyes met over Ray’s answering smile, and it dawned on him there was nothing now to stop them standing in the same room together, whenever they damn well felt like standing in the same room together. Suddenly, horribly, the realisation was too big, and he thought he was going to cry. He tried to turn away from Bodie but found himself pulled back. With one strong hand Bodie pushed Ray’s head on to his shoulder. He held him firmly even when Ray swallowed the sobs and didn’t cry.
“It wasn’t so bad, Ray,” Bodie said. “Compared to the place in the Congo, it was the Ritz. The lads were all right, my cellmate was nowhere near as bad-tempered as you, and I’ve had worse food. It was worse for you out here wondering.
“And I know what you’ve been doing as well. The governor used to complain to me about you. I know you’ve been checking out all the inmates and vetting the newcomers to see if any of them might have a grudge against CI5 or me. I know you got the Connor boys transferred out. I had a job teaching car maintenance to the lads, I know you did that. And I know from my solicitor you’ve been trying to get me an appeal. You’ve been going at this full-time for me.”
It was true. He had spent hours on the phone, he had written letters; he had called in every favour and begged a few more. He had been prowling around the perimeter of the prison like an angry dog. Literally once.
“You’re the one person who’s never let me down in my life, Ray. I won’t forget that.”
Ray pulled away at last, conscious he was pushing his luck when he tried to speak. “Just have a drink, you soft sod.”
Bodie smiled slowly, and they moved to the sofa and armchair. He let Ray refill his glass before continuing the conversation they had started in the car. “Look Ray, I know you don’t want to hear this, but you’ve got to speak to Cowley –“
“Knock it off, mate. I’m not going back without you.”
“Speak to Cowley. Don’t chuck in your career for nothing.”
“Nothing? Jesus.”
“Your loyalty floors me, it takes my breath away. But I’m out now, I’m fine, and we’ve both got to live. I know what to do; I survived for years before I joined the army. But we’ve got to go our separate ways because I’m not dragging you down with me.”
“Are you talking about a mercenary job?” Ray said when he realised what Bodie was getting at. “Oh no, mate, you’re not going Oliver’s Army on me, not after all this time.”
“I’ve already had an offer, all right. One job paying enough to see me through the next few years.”
“What offer? Where?”
“It doesn’t matter where,” Bodie said coldly.
“How can it not matter? You’re off your head.”
“Have you got a better idea, sunshine? Because if you have, I’d like to hear it.”
He hadn’t. Not really. He’d had some unexpected fantasies lately about running a business with Bodie, a gym or something, and having the kind of quiet life he assumed his former partner would not be interested in. Every other possibility more in their line banged up against Bodie’s criminal conviction. He’d hoped Bodie would have something up his sleeve. Not this though.
“Please, Bodie, give it some time. We just need to figure something out.”
Bodie stared at Ray with unreadable eyes and then shrugged. “All right.”
Later, after dinner, Ray moved impatiently about the flat, making cups of tea and forgetting them, stretching out on the lumpy sofa, not settling to TV or reading, but not ready to go to bed, late though it was, exhausted as he was.
Dinner had not gone well. The food was good but Bodie, shockingly, had not much appetite. The prison wall seemed to be putting solid brick between them still, and they had failed to connect, perhaps for the first time. Conversation had been an effort, tripping and falling flat, snagging on forbidden topics, like the past, the present and the future.
Ray had pointed out the pretty barmaid, but Bodie had just wanted to go back to the flat and sleep, uninterrupted by other men’s nightmares. That’s what he said anyway, but the light was still bleeding out from under his bedroom door. Ray could hear him now, drawing back the curtains and opening the window.
He did not have anything particular in mind when he knocked on Bodie’s door.
“Come in, Ray.”
The room was already cold but Bodie stood by the window in only a T-shirt and boxer shorts presenting a rare sighting of arms and legs. Well muscled but pale and bearing the scars of his adult years. Bodie closed the window but did not turn.
“Feeling claustrophobic?” Ray asked coming to the window. As clues went, it wasn’t exactly cryptic. Bodie did not reply but took a handful of Ray’s shirt in a closed fist. Before Ray had time to fathom this curious gesture, Bodie kissed him.
It did not feel like their first kiss. The soft warmth of Bodie’s lips, the rough brush of his stubble, the exploring tongue were recognisable to Ray as the distilled essence of their ancient history. But this rationalisation came later; at the time reason deserted him, and he just kissed Bodie back.
Soon Ray became aware of the response of Bodie’s body to his, and it was he who moved next. He sank down to his knees to push away the boxers and take him into his mouth, bringing him to climax guided by the hand in his hair and soft, alien gasps.
Shocked but not appalled at what he had done, he let himself be pulled up by the shoulders and kissed again. He was on the bed and partially undressed before he remembered to respond, and when he remembered, his heart and belly caught fire and the firm hand and bruising mouth had little more to do.
Bodie misinterpreted the shiver rippling through Ray and pulled the sheets and blankets over him. Resisting the hand Ray put out to him, he switched off the light and got into bed. He lay back folding his arms in an odd, defensive gesture across his stomach and chest.
Ray pressed his forehead to Bodie’s shoulder as he fell asleep. He was grateful for the connection and too astonished to wonder why Bodie had not really looked at him since he came into the room. He soon slept too, laboriously constructed card cathedrals of insomnia at last cascading down. When Ray woke it was mid-morning and Bodie was gone.
When he gathered his wits sufficiently about him, he realised that if Bodie had gone for a walk or to get a newspaper he wouldn’t have packed a bag and taken his passport and bank book. And when he was not to be found at the train or bus station, he realised he had no idea where he had gone.
The CI5 legend concerning the Bodie and Doyle partnership held that Ray was the complex one. He was the philosophical one, the intellectual one and the temperamental one. Bodie on the other hand was supposed to be Mr What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get - dangerous when required but, on the whole, a laid back kind of guy.
Those who believed this failed to appreciate Bodie’s skill at presenting his façade to the world, failed to appreciate that his scars were not just on his skin, that he had seen things and done things even know-all CI5 operatives could scarcely imagine.
Ray might have the occasional tortured moment. He was bloody well only human after all, but he was sure he would never write a note to the person he was about to walk out on saying ‘I love you’ and then rip it into eight pieces and leave it in the kitchen bin to be found when there was next a teabag to be chucked out.
Was Ray supposed to understand from this that – on second thoughts - he wasn’t loved, or that it wasn’t exactly the right moment to mention it? Which it wasn’t, because it just upset him even more. The final draft, which he eventually found on the telly, just said ‘sorry’. Probably this was worse.
He looked at the jigsaw puzzle of a love note on the cracked formica surface of the kitchen counter and wondered exactly what he was doing here. The move to Plymouth, financed from savings and the appalling security job, seemed stupid and embarrassing now. What exactly were his expectations of Bodie? Given that when he had made his move west it had never been a conscious intention to sleep with the man. Had he expected them to form some kind of echo of their CI5 partnership, spend their life together based on no practical necessity? Yes, he supposed he had. He had tied up his future with Bodie’s without bothering to consult him.
Stupid it may have been but there was undeniably an obligation. He had a responsibility to Bodie. A responsibility formed and cemented through all those years shoulder to shoulder in the CI5 trenches and not least because the son of an ambassador was dead from the first of two risky shots fired solely to save Ray’s life.
But Bodie had absolved him of any obligation by leaving and Ray also needed to put what they had behind him. There was nothing between the two of them except a job neither of them had done for almost a year.
By the next morning he had given up the flat and the security job, packed up the car and left for London. The bin-stained, torn up note was in the pocket of his jeans.
~~~
He arrived in London late in the evening without a definite destination. Not wanting to face a night as solitary as all but one of his nights had been for the last six months he avoided the Camden B&B he’d had in mind and stopped at a phone box to call Murphy. Murph had a whispered debate with his wife and told him the couch was his for the night.
Their two year old was already in bed by the time Ray reached the house in Streatham. Murphy and Lisa were clearing away the debris of dinner and bedtime while a silver Christmas tree in the corner of the living room gave a multi-coloured twinkle reminding Ray of the time of year.
Murphy too, gave his usual multi-season twinkle. He ruffled Ray’s hair, clapped him on the back and put a beer in his hand.
“It’s good to see you, mate. Things haven’t been the same without the pair of you.”
“I heard Bodie was out,” he said later, after dinner, when they were contemplating the tree over another beer.
“A couple of days ago.”
“That whole business was a bloody scandal,” Murphy said and not for the first time. “Cowley’s been after the Home Sec about it since the summer.”
“Yeah, I know. He should be sainted.”
Murphy kept looking slightly to the left of Ray as if he was looking for someone who ought to be there. Ray was used to this; he got it a lot when Bodie wasn’t standing next to him.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know. He took off.” Ray tried to keep the hurt out of his voice but Murphy heard it.
“Give him time,” Murphy said wisely. “He’ll get in touch.”
“We don’t work together anymore, Murph. Why should he?”
“Come off it, Ray,” Murphy said, as if he had uttered something so stupid it did not justify a reply. Some of the rest of the squad had Bodie and Doyle married with kids since the seventies. A far cry from the few minutes of anxious jostling the night before last.
The night on Murphy’s sofa was a mistake. He listened in the semi-darkness to the sleepy snuffling of the baby and the drowsy conversation between husband and wife and felt lonelier than he ever had in his empty flat.
It was hours before he managed to block out Murphy’s gargantuan snoring and fall asleep. Not long after, a biscuit-scented baby with a dummy in his mouth woke him handing him a shoe.
“Hullo,” he said accepting the shoe. When he sat up Murphy put a mug of tea in his other hand.
“Better get up. Cowley’s coming to see you.” The baby blinked owlishly at him. “That’s not him.”
The sentence finally sank in. “Why?”
“Maybe he wants to give you your job back.”
“I doubt it,” he said philosophically. “Not after what I said to him when I resigned.”
“What was that?”
“I can’t remember.”
Murphy grinned. “Maybe he’s forgotten too.”
“Very likely. Oh yeah and thanks for grassing me up. I’ll sleep in the car next time.”
The baby handed him his other shoe and he took the hint, heading for the bathroom to splash water on his face and prod hopelessly at sofa-flattened hair.
He was at the kitchen table, on his second cup of tea, having his hair inspected by the baby when the Cow descended from on high.
“Hello, sir,” he said out of habit.
“Doyle,” Cowley replied looking disapprovingly at his former agent and his current state of unshaven, slept-in-his-clothes dishevelment. “How are you?”
“Fine, thanks. You?”
Cowley glared at him. “Understaffed.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Come for a walk with me,” Cowley said.
Ray shrugged and got to his feet.
It was the sort of smoky, frost covered winter morning Ray had learned to feel at home with since his early days in London on the beat. It suited him better than the knife cold of the North or the cold he had experienced on the Moors which sometimes felt like the end of the world.
In another life he would have dragged Bodie out for a run on a morning like this, now he plunged his hands in to the pockets of his flying jacket and kept pace with Cowley’s uneven tread. They headed for the nearby Common, the old spy in Cowley instinctively seeking out the most isolated spot for their meeting.
“I know he’s out now, but I think we should still try to get Bodie leave to appeal,” Ray said. They had been following one of the footpaths through the Common, passing only dog walkers stamping out the cold while their dogs skittered on frozen puddles. “Without the conviction on his record, he could get his job back.”
“Is that what he wants?”
Ray hesitated. “He should have the choice.”
Cowley stopped and turned to Ray. “I’ve been told he’s got no grounds for appeal. So have you. He pled not guilty but didn’t challenge any of the evidence. There’s nothing to appeal.”
“He wasn’t acting recklessly; he made a mistake. He never would have been outside that embassy if he hadn’t been trying to save the lives of the people inside. That has to count for something.”
“Evidently not, Doyle. Not according to the jury.”
“The jury were biased by the newspapers.”
“Aye,” Cowley said. “You may be right.”
The court case had been unfolding at the incomprehensible pace of a nightmare when, one early June evening, the Israeli ambassador was shot by terrorists outside the Dorchester Hotel.
Ray had been suspended along with Bodie while the investigation and court case were underway, but he knew the ambassador’s shooting was a significant loss for CI5. It was presented in the press as a CI5 failure because CI5 were already in the news for shooting another ambassador’s son. Columnists in tabloids and broadsheets started debating the existence of CI5 as if they, and not other security services, had responsibility for the ambassador’s protection.
Ray believed the consequences of the ambassador’s bullet wound were the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and Bodie’s guilty verdict. He knew the invasion was a serious thing too.
They reached a walled garden called the Rookery, normally favoured by kids bunking off from the Catholic school across the road but deserted at such an early hour. He followed Cowley through an ivy covered archway to a murky pond. Frost had settled on the sparse winter planting around it giving the impression of a half-completed Christmas card.
Cowley sat heavily on one of the benches, puffing out a cloud of breath. He was showing his age, Ray thought, which hadn’t been true even six months ago.
“I wonder if you recall our friend, Colonel Ojuka?” Cowley asked finally.
“Ojuka? Yeah, just about.” Colonel Ojuka had visited the UK in the previous year to ask for help against the military junta ruling his country, Batan. The trip had been eventful. “He’s done well for himself.”
“He’s ousted the junta and his party have taken power. He’s also been persuaded to promise elections within a year.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it.”
“You’re right to be sceptical, but by all accounts the government is genuinely popular.”
“They’re nationalising the mining industries and using the profits for social projects rather than lining the pockets of businessmen and generals.”
Cowley gave him a surprised look.
Ray shrugged. “I’ve had a lot of time on my hands with the Guardian.”
“Well I’m glad you’ve spent your time so fruitfully,” Cowley replied dryly. “And I’d agree the country could benefit from the stability Ojuka brings.”
“So why are we talking about Batan?” Ray asked. “Bearing in mind I don’t work for you any more.”
“I’m well aware of that,” Cowley said sharply. “And I’m not asking you to come back to a crypto-fascist organisation that throws its operatives to the dogs for political favour.”
Ray winced as his resignation speech came flooding back, but he couldn’t apologise, not with Bodie so hopelessly lost.
“Eloquent, aren’t I?” Cowley glared at him and he changed the subject. “So, go on then, why Batan?”
“I’m sure your copy of the Guardian has informed you of Batan’s immense mineral wealth.”
“Iron ore, coal and possibly uranium, possibly oil.”
“And a romantic myth of diamonds, which attracts the worst kind of adventurer.”
“Of which?”
“Of which, Peter Armstrong.” Cowley took a photograph from his breast pocket and handed it to Ray. It was a surveillance shot of a man taken as he came out of a pub. He was in his late fifties, tall, broadly built with a hard, angular face and short, greying hair. Ray studied the picture before giving it back. “Peter Armstrong was a Lieutenant in the eighth army during the war.”
“Weren’t you in the eighth army?”
“I was.” Cowley stared down at the picture. “Armstrong was discharged and served a short sentence following the discovery of an armaments theft ring.”
“He was nicking guns. What for?”
“For money. Since then he’s been in the Middle East and Africa doing what he can to make more. He’s mainly involved in arms dealing and gun running, but he has also led mercenary troops and trained private security. We think he has more sophisticated plans for Batan.” Cowley shuffled the photograph back into his jacket and took off his glasses, looking up at Ray. “He’s in London now to recruit what appears to be a small army.”
“To take to Batan?”
“To engineer a coup and displace Ojuka, putting in his own, more corporate-minded local man as dictator.”
“Blimey, that’s a bit proactive. The Colonel’s not going to like it.”
“Indeed, and I’m doing what I can to prevent this adventure going ahead. Though frankly, we have little evidence to proceed on at the moment.”
“You need evidence? Times have changed.”
“I can manage without the commentary, Doyle.”
“Do you want me to try and stop him? Is that what you’re asking?”
“No, I can’t ask that, you’re a civilian.” Cowley fixed him with an assessing gaze. “I want you to stop Bodie working for him.”
“Bodie? What makes you think he’s got anything to do with Armstrong?”
“I’ve a man undercover in the pub Armstrong is using to do his recruiting. Or I had until Bodie walked in yesterday. He ducked out before Bodie recognised him.”
“I didn’t know Bodie was in town.”
Cowley nodded, seemingly unsurprised at the admission.
“Armstrong isn’t recruiting any thug off the street. He wants skilled men, ex-service, ex-agencies. Men dishonourably discharged or fallen on hard times. Or wasting their time in dead-end security guard jobs.” He spared a moment to scowl at Ray and let him know he had been keeping track of him.
If Bodie hasn’t told you what he’s planning, it’s because he knows you won’t approve. And Doyle, believe me you don’t approve of Peter Armstrong. If Bodie throws his lot in with him, he will be so far on the wrong side of the law, there will be no going back.”
“Where do I start?” Ray asked.
~~~
When Ray got back to the house, Murphy was waiting for him.
“Has he talked you into coming back?”
“He didn’t even ask.”
“You’re kidding. What did he want then?”
Ray told him about Armstrong and his plans for Batan.
“Ojuka? Wasn’t he the geezer with the four wives?”
“Yeah, that geezer, Murph. Though I think he’s probably struggling by on three after what happened.”
“Do you really think Bodie would be daft enough to get back into that game?”
“He’s daft enough. More than. He even admitted it. But this job is extreme even for private army work.”
“Desperate times,” Murphy said.
“They’re that all right. But he’s not going to listen to me, is he? I tried to talk him out of it back in Plymouth. I obviously made a big impression because ten minutes later he was gone.”
“If anyone can stop the lad going to the bad, it’s you.”
“Not when he’s made up his mind, Murph.”
Murphy checked his weapon before holstering it and shrugging on his jacket. “Listen, mate, Cowley likes to claim he rescued Bodie from a life of crime, but all he did was offer him a job. Everyone knows it was you who gave him a reason stick with it.”
Ray dismissed the notion. “You’re joking. I nearly walked out a hundred times. It was Bodie who stopped me.”
“I’m not saying it didn’t work both ways, but you two were the best, and the old man needed you. He had you working all hours on the toughest jobs. Operation Susies and god knows what. I know you both loved the job and I know the old man matched you hour for hour, but how many weeks had you been on without a day off when that man got shot?”
“It’s not the sort of job where you clock watch.”
“Even so. I’m only admitting this because, since you left, it’s all fallen to me, but you had it a lot worse than any of us. There was nothing in Bodie’s past to say he would have put up with that for more than a year. If he hadn’t been partnered with you, he would have packed it in long ago, and you’re the only one who can stop him going off now.”
Ray shrugged, unconvinced, but touched at Murphy’s words all the same.
“I’ll have to find him first.”
“I’ll see what I can dig up about this Armstrong character. Do you need the couch for a few more days?”
“I think I’m going to go to Alf’s. Thanks though.”
“Yeah, well don’t sodding disappear again.”
Murphy’s garage was currently full of both Ray’s and Bodie’s stuff as well as Ray’s bike. Ray added the boxes he had brought back from Plymouth to the unstable heap already there.
Both batches of boxes had been packed and transported in a hurry, and he couldn’t remember now which were his and which were Bodie’s. The thought gave him a kind of satisfaction. Perhaps their lives were so tangled it would take more than simple distance to separate them. Perhaps this was the one thing they had in their favour.
“I can’t get the car in you know,” Murphy hinted.
“I’m not surprised with all this junk,” he said, earning himself a look.
~~~
The large, double-fronted, Victorian house was run by an old friend of CI5’s named Alf. It was called a B&B, but the guests were generally expected to fend for themselves as far as breakfast was concerned. Agents waiting for assigned accommodation to become available often stayed here, so Ray knew it well.
He checked into a plain and basic room on a corner of the third floor. After unpacking his one suitcase, he washed and shaved in the shared bathroom then fell asleep on top of the bedspread, making up for the rotten night on Murphy’s sofa. When he woke, it was about four o’clock and he went out for something to eat.
It had been dark for a few hours when he drove to the East End. The pub Cowley had sent him to was called The Drill Sergeant. It was a miserable place with all the charm of a public lavatory and with a constant air of melancholy about it, having lost the ‘D’ and ‘r’ from the start of its sign.
It was a busy night, the tables crowded with groups of men and few women. Ray knew the types. This was a place you would go if you wanted to find out who was recruiting. Men back from overseas or getting ready to leave met here. He listened to some of their tall tales and missed Bodie with an intensity that surprised him.
Neither Bodie nor Armstrong came in that evening. Of course they could be anywhere. They could be in another pub or on a plane out of the country, though he hoped the complexities of engineering a coup would delay the departure to Batan for a while longer.
He left his watery beer before closing time having achieved nothing. Driving back to Alf’s, he passed a pub called the King George. It had an optimistic chain of Christmas lights strung across the front and a welcoming warmth the Ill Sergeant completely lacked. He wanted to stop and drown his sorrows with a proper drink, but he pushed his way on deciding it was probably best to get a takeaway and go back to his room.
The following day was spent in a futile zigzag across London speaking to Bodie’s contacts and acquaintances. He was not surprised to find no one had seen him. Bodie had only been back for a few days and was unlikely to be in the most sociable of moods.
But there was a reassurance in the process that kept him going. It was a relief to be back in London, back on familiar streets, to be back on his adopted home ground.
He was not like Bodie who would be at home anywhere on the planet and on whom the jungle exerted a primal hold. Ray belonged among the sturdy constructions of the greatest and most inexplicable of cities. It was wilderness he found unsettling. The bleak, unmade moors of Devon had made him want London’s untidy, slow-travelling river, its banks crowded with buildings and people and history.
Ray went back to the Ill Sergeant in time for evening opening, and this time he got a nod of recognition from the barman. Later, he watched him methodically proceeding from table to table with a damp rag redistributing the dirt in a fair and equitable manner. He stopped at Ray’s table.
“Are you looking for work, son?”
Ray shrugged. “Could be. I heard this was the place to find it.”
Ray had hoped it would not come to an undercover. He had hoped he would be able to sit down with Bodie and talk him out of this daft plan over a couple of pints. And if that didn’t work, chain him to a radiator until he saw sense. But here was an opportunity he couldn’t help but take advantage of.
“Are you some kind of copper?” The barman asked. “You look it.”
“I used to be.”
“Thought so,” the barman said congratulating himself on his powers of perception. “What’s your name, son?”
“Ray Doyle.” They could check him out, and his true history would make an ideal cover story.
“Come back tomorrow.”
“What for?”
“Something worth the trouble.”
He resisted the King George again on his way home, promising himself a drink there when this was over. He noticed an estate agent’s sign over the door and imagined himself proprietor. He smiled at the thought of another possible career change. Another daydream.
When he went back to the Ill Sergeant the following evening, the barman immediately waved him over.
“Upstairs lad, chop-chop, they’re waiting for you.”
“Who’s that then?”
“The labour exchange, who do you think?”
The room he was directed to was a small private dining room, and two men, neither of them Bodie, sat together at a table. Both were in their fifties, and Ray recognised one as Peter Armstrong from the photograph Cowley had shown him. In person he was more striking, radiating a power and energy reminiscent of Cowley himself. Ray sat down uninvited, and Armstrong sized him up.
“You’ll have to get a haircut if you want to work for me?”
Ray rolled his eyes and slouched back in his chair, his hands in his jacket pockets. They might suspect him of being an undercover officer, and he had to convince them otherwise if he wanted to get anywhere near Bodie.
“You’re Ray Doyle?” Armstrong’s accent came from the far North of Scotland, but it had softened with his years away from home.
“That’s right. And you?”
“No names for the time being. Can I take it you’re the Ray Doyle who worked for George Cowley in CI5?”
“I chucked it in six months ago.”
“As I understand it you were one of Morris’ best and most loyal men.” He unthinkingly referred to Cowley by his old army nickname. “It must have been quite a blow to him when you resigned.”
“Yeah well, that wasn’t my problem.”
“And your resignation followed the death of a member of the public and your partner’s court case.”
“You must be Eammon Andrews, seeing as you know my life story so well.”
“And then you worked as a security guard before coming back to London. Why did you come back?”
“I’m looking for something a bit more challenging, aren’t I? And a lot more money.”
“Why come to me? What do you know about this job?”
“Nothing. I came here because I know this pub from when it was on my beat. I thought I could make some contacts for overseas work. Where’s this job supposed to be, anyway?”
“Does it matter?”
He shrugged and then wondered if he was coming across as too slovenly and insolent. He straightened up and submitted without attitude to a ream of questions from the second man. These were about his fighting skills, weapons proficiency, tactical experience, and so on.
“We’d have to put some of those superpowers to the test before we took you on,” the second man said, but he nodded to Armstrong.
“It would be one in the eye for Morris if I got another of his men on my payroll.”
Ray looked up.
“Another?” So Cowley’s fears had been justified.
“There’s one thing I need to do,” Armstrong continued. “I’m not taking anyone on for this job without someone I know vouching for them, and as I said, I already have an ex-CI5 man on my books.”
Ray was sent downstairs, but he did not have long to wait before he was called back. Armstrong was packing up.
“It’s not going to happen,” he said.
“Why not?”
“It seems you’re insubordinate, unreliable and a danger to others.”
“Which arsehole told you that?” As if he didn’t know.
“The man I’ve got is a good man, and I trust his judgement.”
“Yeah? Well I was with the squad for eight years, and there was nothing on my record.”
“I can’t afford any loose cannons. The barman can help you find an outfit that’s less choosy.”
Ray waited in his car for Armstrong to leave. He had the idea of following him, but a couple of the Ill Sergeant regulars soon came out and told him to get lost.
He headed in the direction of home wondering what on earth he could do next to stop Bodie from losing himself to this other, darker life.
He parked the car in front of the King George and decided to drink himself numb there.
go to part two
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