By 3 a.m. I was pulling into the tiny village of Maidens far down the coast and rolling on to the sandy grass at the seafront. I eased down the window a bit, got into the back seat and fell asleep to the swish of waves on the beach.
By first light I was awake and walking on the shore in my shirtsleeves swinging my arms to free my stiff limbs. For breakfast I had a cigarette sitting on a sand dune, watching Ailsa Craig define itself in the morning light. I didn’t think much about the messy business ahead or whether I’d come out of it with my skin. The slaughter so far had all been one-sided. It was time to even things up. It was that simple. My boiling anger seemed to have evaporated like sea mist. In its place was a cool certainty about my next steps.
The first time I had this feeling was when the old 51st was surrounded at St Valery en Caux and forced to surrender, stuck as we were, in the middle of a French army who’d already waved the white flag. I slipped away with four of my men and hightailed it along the cliffs until we found a fisherman’s boat and sailed it back to England. It was the same feeling on the morning of our counter-attack against Rommel outside Tobruk. The sun swept aside the cool desert air and brought with it clarity and a tingling readiness. I ushered my platoon to their positions and prepared for the off as if we were on a training romp at Aldershot. I came to see it as a gift that I could draw on when the die had been cast, when the time for planning was done. My mind was working as smoothly and efficiently as the action in the beautiful Dickson lying in the boot. And with equal deadly purpose. The months of vacillation and gloom in London were swept aside. This was what I was trained for. It’s what I’m good at.
By six I was back in the car and pressing south along the coast. On any other day I would have been grinning with the sheer pleasure of the trip, the big car feeling tight and powerful in my hands as we swept round bends and down green hills. The sea on my right lay flat and calm like a pewter dish. As the road swung round to the west the whale shape of Arran swam into view to the north. South again and the symmetrical granite stump of Ailsa Craig appeared and disappeared in the sea mists. These two islands had floated through the days of my youth, markers of long dreamy picnics among the dunes, backdrops to mad games in the shallow pools. Now, I didn’t know if they were omens or endings, signifying the full circle of my life.
On down the rocky coast and through Girvan, until the signs pointed me towards Stranraer and the ferry to Ireland. I was in luck. I made the eight-o’clock boat and was soon tucking into a bracing Ulster Fry of tattie farls, sliced black pudding, streaky bacon and mushrooms. Other than the fry-up it was a three-and-a-half-hour uneventful crossing. No one tried to throw me overboard.
I stood on the top deck leaning over the rail, watching for the first line of Irish coast to come over the horizon. The grey line took on definition and formed itself into green hills and a township with an open harbour. Soon I was flicking my last cigarette into the briny and going down to collect the car as we eased into Larne. My stomach was churning, either in protest at the greasy breakfast or the prospect of facing Slattery and his men on their home turf. The ferrymen saluted me as I powered up the engine and drove the Riley out on to the ramp.
I had a rough idea where I was going but I needed fuel and a proper map. I stopped at the first garage and tore off the last of my blue coupons and very nearly the last of my pound notes to fill the tank. I bought a map and got directions from the attendant, and drove off towards the west.
By my reckoning it was about 120 miles from Larne to my destination, through Antrim on the A6 and then on lesser roads round to Enniskillen. The final stretch would be on the B514 to Lisnaskea.
I had no grand plan but was relying on figuring something out once I’d seen the lie of the land. The address I’d got from the cleaning woman suggested some sort of farm on the outskirts of Lisnaskea. Was it in open fields or woodland? Was it by a stream or tucked behind high hedges? Were they waiting for me or not? Had they abducted Samantha Campbell and staked her out as a goat to capture this tiger? All I knew was that they were almost a day ahead of me, and every hour that passed, added more peril to Sam’s situation. If she was still alive.
By early evening I was starving, mouth-dry and weary. I drove through a town, Fintona, up the long incline of Main Street, and looked at my watch. It was six o’clock and I reckoned I was an hour’s drive from Lisnaskea. I had thought to press on to Enniskillen tonight and down to Lisnaskea to do a first recce, but that was daft. I’d had two fitful hours’ sleep. I’d be blundering around in the twilight too tired to react quickly and more likely to get my head blown off.
The Red Bull offered me a bed for the night. I had a stroll round the town, then demolished a doorstop cheese sandwich washed down with a cool black stout. I batted away the enquiring glances and the pointed questioning of the handful of customers and mine host. I told them I was a travelling salesman, in encyclopaedias. That seemed to drain the life out of the conversation, but I’m pretty sure they had me down as a British agent.
The bed was softer than I liked but I was more tired than I knew. I plunged into sleep till the light of morning jolted me awake and left me baffled and disorientated. It took me a second or three before I recalled where I was and why. The why bit clenched my head with anger against Slattery and fear for Sam. I brought up a picture of the Dickson in my hands. I saw myself pulling the trigger and felt the tension ease the bands round my skull. I was on the road by eight o’clock and heading west again, my stomach swollen with Irish hospitality and my water bottle filled from the landlord’s tap. I was about an hour’s drive from my showdown with the Slattery boys. Were they to be my nemesis? Was this to be the violent conclusion to the journey I’d foreseen on that rocking sleeper to Glasgow? All roads intersecting at this murderous end point? And which, if any of us, would walk away?
THIRTY-NINE
The main road cut through Enniskillen. The town was thronged with traffic, much of it horse and cart. People were smartly dressed for a provincial town in the Wild West. Then the bells reminded me; it was a Sunday. I began to feel more and more conscious of the big Riley and its Scottish plates. I felt the crowd scrutinise me as I edged through. This close to Lisnaskea there was just the chance of running into one of the Slattery men and being recognised. I put my hat on and pulled it down on my forehead.
The faces outside were familiar, but not because I knew any of them; I’d seen those generic, whey-skinned, undistinguished features – like oatmeal biscuits – a hundred times a day growing up in the West of Scotland. The accents drifting though my sidelight window were as impenetrable as the best of the Gorbals.
I threaded my way out of town and turned due south towards Lisnaskea. I waited till I found a farm track and pulled off. I cut the engine and let the silence sweep in, or at least what passed for silence in the country. The birds were singing for their lives all around me as I stepped out of the car and opened the boot. The smell of grass and hot earth seduced my brain and made me think of walking hand in hand with Fiona long ago by the Kilmarnock Water.
But I had other business this day. I unwrapped the cloth next to my coat and tossed the gutting knife up and down to get the feel of the balancing point. I chose a tree about ten feet away. I flung the knife. It clattered handle first off the trunk. I adjusted my grip and tried again. It flew straight and true and sunk into the soft wood. I repeated the throw until I was satisfied I had the measure of the blade. I moved back another few feet and repeated the move. I cleaned the knife and slipped it down the side of my sock, point first. The metal chilled my leg and the sharp blade pressed sideways against the ankle bone as I moved.