Even when he wasn’t working days would pass without him speaking more than ten words. These days a few muttered syllables on the phone was the full extent of his social interaction. And, of course, his visits to the cinema.
He had loved the cinema for as long as he could remember. Ever since his mother first took him to their local fleapit, somewhat inappropriately named The Palace, to see Planet of the Apes.
Like everything else, his cinema-going had changed over the years too. Now his local was one of the sixteen-screen multiplexes that had sprung up in most large towns.
Ward spent a large amount of time in the one that was just ten minutes’ drive from his house. So much
time in fact that many of the staff spoke to him as if he were a friend.
He watched everything. He had endured films like Pearl Harbor, he had tolerated pictures like Shakespeare in Love, and he had marvelled at masterpieces such as Gladiator. They offered an escape for him. A chance to sit in darkness for two or three hours and concentrate on the images before him.
Anything to forget his present predicament.
This particular day was cheap day. It was also pension day and most of the auditoria were populated by pensioners, usually complaining about how loud the sound was or muttering damning comments about the films shown in the trailers.
Ward parked his car in the large car park outside the building and walked in, glad to feel the air-conditioning after the heat of the sunshine. He took the escalator to the first floor where the cinemas were housed.
There were a number of restaurants and coffee bars on the same floor and he glanced over at them as he strode towards the box office.
He saw couples sitting talking. Laughing. Everyone, it seemed, had someone.
Except him.
He ambled into the short queue behind two pensioners and a couple of students and waited, scanning the electronic board behind the cashiers that displayed show times.
The pensioners were having trouble choosing between Captain Corelli’s Mandolin or Hannibal. Both based on bestselling books, Ward noted with annoyance.
They were still deciding when the students slipped past them and bought tickets for The Mummy Returns.
He felt like giving the old sods a prod in the back, telling them that they wouldn’t enjoy Hannibal and that Captain Corelli’s Mandolin was bullshit.
Instead, he too slipped past them and shoved a five-pound note through the small slot beneath the glass of the cashier’s position. He collected his change and headed off to the theatre showing X-Men 2.
The girl who tore his ticket smiled at him. She was pretty. Early twenties. He glanced at her gold name badge. Sheree.
He hurried to find a seat. The lights were dimming as he sat down. He was free for another two hours.
COME THE NIGHT
Ward hated the night. It gave him time to think. Thoughts crowded in like unwanted spectres.
He sat in front of the television, the images before him barely registering.
But after half a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, very little of anything was registering.
Alcoholic anaesthetic.
Apparently every drink killed a thousand brain cells. The first to go were memory cells.
Ward poured himself another drink and murdered a few more recollections.
By the time he’d finished the bottle, the clock on top of his TV showed 1.03
a.m. He struggled to his feet and switched off the late-night film, some Jean-Claude Van Damme shite. It could have been anything.
He slammed the living-room door behind him, set the burglar alarm and wandered upstairs.
It was a humid night and Ward wasn’t surprised to hear the first rumblings of thunder in the distance. He undressed in the darkness and stood gazing out over his considerable back garden and up at the cloud-filled sky.
Far away there was a silent fork of lightning. It cut through the clouds like a silver spear and was followed, seconds later, by a loud clap of thunder.
He watched the sky, watched the darkness. Felt his head spinning.
He glanced in the direction of his office, clearly visible from his bedroom window. There was a dull grey glow coming from inside.
Ward blinked hard and sighed. Had he forgotten to turn the monitor off again?
There was another flash of lightning, the silver gleam glinting on the velux windows of the office.
Ward sat on the edge of the bed for a moment then lay down.
The storm grew louder.
It was a long time before he slept.
RESUMING HOSTILITIES
Blank screen. Headache.
Christopher Ward massaged the back of his neck with one hand and exhaled deeply.
It wasn’t a hangover. He’d had enough of those over the years to know the difference.
The storm that had raged for most of the night had brought with it only a little rain and the grass had been virtually dry when he’d made his way out to the office that morning.
An hour ago to be precise. A painful, thought-free, tormented hour.
Finally he re-read what he’d written the day before.
Then he rested his fingers on the keys and began to type.
BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND, PRESENT DAY:
There were two pounds of explosive beneath the bus seat, wrapped carefully in a black plastic bin liner and secured by gaffer tape. No one but the bombers knew it was there.
Certainly none of the eighteen passengers who were crowded on to the vehicle as it moved through Belfast city centre.
Not the driver who brought the bus to a halt in North Street. He smiled courteously at every new passenger as they dropped their fare into the small metal dish. Some took the change. Others waved away the few pence he offered as if it were some kind of tip.
The driver smiled, waited until the last of the new batch was safely aboard then hit the button that shut the automatic doors.They closed with a loud hydraulic hiss and the bus pulled out into traffic once more.
As the driver swung into Royal Avenue he peered to one side to catch sight of the spire of St Anne’s Cathedral jabbing skyward at the banks of cloud that were scudding over the city.
Most of the seats were already taken. In his rear-view mirror, the driver could see a young woman struggling to puil a baby’s bottle from a bag. She offered it to her child and the boy (he assumed it was a boy as it was dressed in blue) sucked hungrily at the teat. Two middle-aged women were chatting animatedly, sometimes glancing back at the feeding child and murmuring happily to it while its mother ran a hand through her tousled hair and tried to stop her shopping bags from tumbling over as the bus rounded a corner.
There was another stop further ahead and two passengers rose, preparing to alight there. The driver could see more than a dozen people waiting to take their places.
He swung the bus in close behind a Datsun that was waiting in the bus lane, hazard lights blinking. He hit his hooter twice and the Datsun moved off.
The bus doors opened to expel the two passengers and welcome the newcomers. As they filed on, the driver looked at his watch. Shift nearly over, thank God.
The beginnings of a headache were gnawing at the base of his skull. He was sure his wife was right and he needed glasses. A combination of that and the concentration needed to guide a bus through Belfast’s busy centre usually left him needing to swallow a couple of Nurofen by the end of the day. Perhaps once he got his glasses he wouldn’t have that trouble. His appointment with the optician was at nine the following morning. Or was it nine-thirty? He’d check when he got home.