Civvies

Harry hadn't moved a muscle. He stood flattened to the wall, watching Dillon slowly and silently descend. Then nodded as Dillon held up three fingers. With twenty rounds in the mag he could take out three Irish bastards and still have enough to spare for their slags and brats. Wipe out the Irish nation, that was Harry's final solution.

He went suddenly tense, and Dillon froze on the stairs. The man in the room hacked out a cough and did a couple of ferocious encores. Dillon counted to five and took another step down, letting go a breath, when the door opened and the man came out. In the poor light coming from the TV, Dillon registered only that he was young, with long hair, wearing a scruffy jacket over an open-necked shirt. He saw Dillon first, and started to backtrack into the room, grabbing the edge of the door to slam it shut. Harry sprang round from the wall, smashed the butt of the rifle into the door, knocking it back on its hinges. He swung the rifle round, levelling it. Dillon jumped the rest of the stairs. He landed in the hallway, arms up ready to dive forward and grapple with the man, when the rifle blasted. The man uttered no sound. There was a crash, a thump, and then, save for the TV burbling to itself, silence.

He was lying half on his side, face down to the carpet. One hand still clutched a grimy handkerchief. In falling he'd upset a little two-bar electric fire, a flex leading from it to the light bulb socket, which was why the room was in semi-darkness.

'He grabbed the bloody thing, Frank,' Harry complained. He ejected the empty shell, picked it up and put it in his pocket. 'Is it him?'

Dillon checked the pulse in the man's neck, but there was really no need to. His arm was flung out, away from the body, and there was a hole in the left armpit, right next to the heart. That's why he hadn't uttered a squeak.

'You've killed him.' Dillon pushed the body over onto its back. Slowly he straightened up. 'Oh my God,' he said, 'this isn't him. It's not him!'

Harry leaned over to see for himself. He squatted down on his haunches, supporting himself with the rifle. He glanced up. 'Where the hell you goin'?'

Dillon was at the door. He said, 'There were three sleepin' bags, they could be back.' He jerked his thumb savagely. 'Leave him, just leave him!' and was gone.

Harry laid the Armalite down. The dead man had nothing on him except a cheap wallet with a few quid in it. Harry put it in his pocket. He tucked the rifle under his arm and stood up, about to follow Dillon. He looked at the electric fire on its side. A thin wisp of smoke rose up where the bars had already singed the strip of carpet. With his foot, Harry pushed the fire closer to the dead man, and with a nudge, closer still, until it was touching. He reached down and picked up a bottle of Powers on the floor next to the armchair, about quarter full. He took a big mouthful, glancing towards the door, and spurted out a spray of whisky straight onto the bars. There was a whoosh of flame. The dead man's jacket sleeve ignited. Harry tossed the bottle on top of the funeral pyre and scarpered.

Dillon leaned over the washbasin, splashing cold water into his face. He blinked the water from his eyes and stared at his hands, shaking uncontrollably. His face in the mirror was ashen. He reached for the towel. From the office along the passage he could hear Harry's voice: 'Sorry to ring so late, Wally, but we're on an all-night job. Na! Bit of security work, they can't afford a dog.'

When Dillon came in, drying his hands, Harry was standing at the desk, laughing into the phone. On the blotter in front of him lay the photostats, the two images, full face, left-right profiles, stark under the lamplight. 'Just wanted to make sure you're on for some work tomorrow… yeah, G'night.' He hung up.

'You get shot of that friggin' rifle, take it back where it came from, just get the thing out,' Dillon said. He tossed the towel down and indicated the photostats with a curt nod, his eyes very dark in his pale face. 'No more. I mean it, Harry, and I'm warnin' you… Burn it, do it.'

'What's the matter, Frank, lost your bottle?'

'Yeah, maybe I have.' Dillon looked away, scowling. 'We just killed a bloke. I dunno how it makes you feel -'

'I feel fine,' Harry interrupted. He looked fine too, blue eyes bright, high colour in his cheeks, adrenalin surging through him. 'An' I sorted Wally, he thinks we're on an all-nighter.'

'Well I don't feel fine, I feel like shit. You want to keep going, then you get out of the firm. I got too much to lose, an' I'm not losin' it for you, for…' hardly hesitating '… my lads. It's over, Harry.'

'Over for you, over for them,' Harry said, a harsh edge to his voice. 'They were just kids – one of 'em, Phil, he'd only enlisted six months.'

Dillon went up, grabbed a fistful of Harry's combat jacket, his eyes blazing. 'You're using them, Harry, don't do this to me! We're in civvies, we got no right to take the law into our own hands.'

'This is Army business -'

'Bullshit. And we're not in the Army, we're in civvies.'

'They don't wear a uniform neither,' Harry said stolidly, the immovable object, the implacable force.

'But it's their war, it's not ours, not any more. It's over, and if you want to lose all this -' Dillon gestured round ' – then we'll buy you out. I won't let you – or that scum – drag me down.'

Dillon stared into the blue eyes. Harry stared back. A moment's silence passed, which lasted several ages, until Dillon said:

'So I'm asking you, let it go.'

He couldn't or wouldn't. Or would he?

'I can't do it, Harry, I'm out, man.' The towel lay over the back of the chair, where Dillon had tossed it. Now he was throwing it in again, and he didn't care that Harry knew it, or that Harry might call him traitor, coward, betrayer. The lads were dead, let that be an end to it. What's past is past.

It took a long time, each word had to be dragged from his heels upwards, landing like lead in his chest, words that strangled him, he was so charged with emotion. Not weeping, they were not those kind of tears that trickled down Dillon's cheeks and glistened in the line of his scar, to Harry it was not even Dillon speaking, the depth of sorrow was like the aftermath of a hard punch in the gut.

'I want out Harry, let me go. I have too much to lose, I'm finished with this, God forgive me… I want out!'

Harry straightened his shoulders. He thought he knew all there was to know about Dillon, but he'd learned something more. Another depth to the man he'd never suspected, through all their years together. Another Sergeant Dillon entirely. He didn't know whether it was an added strength, or a hidden weakness, but none of that seemed to matter, and he clasped Dillon tightly in an embrace that said he didn't care, that it was over, done with, finished.

'You're the Guv'nor,' Harry said.

CIVVIES

CHAPTER 36

Harry drove into the Roche Laundry Services' car park and parked the security wagon on the diagonal yellow stripes outside the main office. He put on his visored helmet and tightened the chinstrap, hoping, praying, that it might muffle or even, praise be, cut out Cliff's endless yakking completely. No such luck. Getting out and walking round to join Harry, Cliff kept it up.

'… I tell you, if I'd known what it was gonna be like, I'd never have agreed, she's goin' nuts. I'm workin', right, and I get back to bleat-bleat, you think she was the first woman to get pregnant. She keeps havin' fittings for the weddin' gown, rehearsals for the weddin' – terrified her Dad'll find out.'

'Well, they'll all know six months after yer weddin', she'll be in the maternity ward,' Harry said, for something to say. 'Why not just tell 'em?'

They went through reception to the Wages office, where the canvas sacks, fastened and sealed with dated lead slugs, were piled on a trolley awaiting them. They showed their IDs.

'Huh!' Cliff retorted. 'You think I want that bugger round – he hates me!' He shook his head, gave a long-suffering sigh. 'You got the right idea, Harry – stay single!'