Severed

'Does it hurt?' I ask her.

'No,' she whispers throatily.

The wine's making me light-headed, and my troubles seem to evaporate. The whole world has been reduced to this one room and the woman with the long blonde hair and golden skin who stands in front of me. For these few liberating moments, nothing else matters.

I take a single gulp of the wine, put it down on the table, and touch my lips to hers. Her hand reaches behind my neck and pulls me into a tight embrace. We kiss hard, passionately, our bodies intertwined. She tastes of cinnamon. I cup one small, round breast and knead it lightly, pushing myself up against her, my breath coming in ragged, urgent gasps. She moans, and uses her other hand to pull my shirt loose from my jeans, her fingers running across my stomach and chest.

'Let's go to bed,' she whispers.

I don't resist as she leads me up the stairs and into a tiny bedroom with bare walls and un-polished floorboards. She unbuttons my shirt and rips it off, her mouth locked on mine, before pulling away and pausing simply to gaze at me. Her lips are parted and drawn back in a voluptuous smile, and tresses of blonde hair have fallen loose across her face. It's a look of undisguised lust, and every part of my body responds to it. I want this woman desperately.

I grind my pelvis against hers, my hands gripping her hips. The feeling is so intense it's as if it's taken on a life of its own, become almost unstoppable.

And yet something does stop me.

Leah.

A flashback from this morning invades my consciousness: of her, cold and lifeless on the bed, butchered like an animal. I can hear her cries on the DVD as, terrified and helpless, she awaits her bloody fate. And then, suddenly, I picture her as I knew her in happier times – laughing, vibrant and alive. The woman I was falling in love with. And I know I can't do this. Not today. Maybe not for a long time. And certainly not while the bastard who ordered her murder is still at large.

I let go of Alannah.

'I want you, Tyler,' she says huskily, taking my right hand by the wrist and guiding it towards her midriff.

'I want you too,' I say, but I'm no longer seeing her. In my mind's eye, I'm seeing Leah dying, and I wonder, with a sense of panic, whether this image will appear for the rest of my days whenever I'm intimate with another woman. I look Alannah in the eye. 'But I can't do this.'

She seems surprised, and I'm guessing rejection isn't something she's used to. She lets go of my hand, and it drops to my side.

'I'm sorry,' I tell her, feeling vaguely embarrassed.

'What's wrong? Are you OK?'

I turn away from her gaze. 'I'm fine. It's just that there's someone else, that's all.'

'Oh,' she says. 'OK. I'm sorry, I didn't realize.'

'It's all right. Don't worry about it. I got caught up in things myself.'

Alannah walks round to the other side of the double bed and pulls a fresh pack of cigarettes from an open carton on the floor. She lights one and turns my way.

'You're something of an enigma, Mr Tyler,' she tells me. 'In my experience, faithful, romantic men are rare. Especially those who operate on the wrong side of the law.'

'Someone's got to be the standard bearer for fidelity,' I tell her with a small smile.

She manages an even smaller one in return and sits down on the bed, taking a drag on the cigarette and blowing out a thin line of smoke towards the cracked, nicotine-stained ceiling. Outside the window, another commuter train comes rattling past.

I lean down and pick up my shirt from the floor, and she asks me where I got my scars.

'It's a long story,' I answer.

'Are you in a hurry to go anywhere?'

At some point soon I'm going to have to pay a visit to Eddie Cosick, but I'm tired, and it's been a long day. I need to rest. 'Not particularly,' I answer, pulling the shirt back on.

'Then why don't you tell me it? Get the wine from downstairs and come and sit with me.' She gives me a coy look. 'I won't bite. I promise.'

It's a foolish move, I know, but the bed looks a lot more comfortable than the chair with the springless springs in her living room, so I do as she asks, returning with the glasses and handing one to her.

'Cheers,' she says, giving my glass a little clink.

'Cheers,' I answer, making myself comfortable on the bed, conscious of her closeness.

'It's a pity we had to meet under such circumstances.'

I'm thinking it's a pity we had to meet at all, but I don't say anything. She asks me once again about the scars, and I tell her the story of the day my APC was bombed in South Armagh. Despite what I said, it doesn't take long at all, because I still don't like talking about it. It may have been ten years ago, but the memories remain as raw as ever. I'm wondering whether in the future it'll be the same with the memories of today.

Alannah listens in silence, and when I'm finished she exhales loudly. 'That's some tale. And was it the end of your career in the army?'

'No, they couldn't get rid of me that easily. I was in hospital for three weeks, and on sick leave for eight weeks after that, but I went back and stayed for another six years.'

'Why?'

'Because I wasn't sure what else to do, I suppose. But it was never really the same after that. You know, I'd lost two friends dead, and then I lost a lot of others.'

'Really? Were you bombed again?'

'No. In a way, it was worse than that.'

She leans forward on one elbow, looking enthralled. 'Tell me about it.'

I feel a flicker of concern, knowing I shouldn't be letting on too much about myself. But she already knows my name, and one of my tales about service in Northern Ireland, so I conclude that there doesn't seem much harm in adding another to the mix.

'Well, the way we were ambushed caused a lot of anger in the unit,' I explain. 'The thing is, Northern Ireland was a really frustrating place to serve. You knew who the enemy were. You knew them by name – the gunmen, the bombers, all of them – but there was nothing you could do about it.'

She looks puzzled. 'What do you mean?'

'I mean, it wasn't like a proper war, and that was the problem. Our regiment, the Paras, were trained as shock troops. We were meant to fight in proper wars, but Northern Ireland wasn't like that. There, we were just surrogate police officers. It didn't matter if you knew someone was IRA, you had to wait until they actually tried to kill you before you could fight back; and even then, because they used roadside bombs and snipers, you never really got the chance actually to take them on. So, when the guys from our unit heard that the RUC knew the identities of the people who'd attacked us but didn't have enough evidence to bring charges, everything just spilled over.

'There was a pub about half a mile away from where the bomb went off which was a well-known haunt for IRA sympathizers, and the bomber was one of the regulars. So one night not long afterwards, the remaining members of our unit led by our OC, Major Ryan, raided the place. It was meant to be an official operation to gather evidence about IRA activities, but the whole thing degenerated into a brawl. I don't know how it started. I think one of the customers started getting really irate, demanding to know on what grounds the place was being searched – that sort of thing. Apparently, he got hit in the face with a rifle butt, and then everything just kicked off. I think a lot of the guys in the unit had been looking for just this sort of excuse to come down hard, but the problem was they came down too hard, and they started laying into everyone, including the man they reckoned was the bomber. From what I heard, they spread-eagled him face down on the floor of the pub, with one man sitting on his legs, another on his back, and a man holding each of his arms, and then smashed his fingers one by one with their rifle butts. Then they took it in turns to stamp on his hands until they were pretty sure everything was broken, before picking him up and chucking him over the bar and into all the spirit bottles.