A Sentimental Traitor (36 page)

Not the words of the newspaper, but images and sorrows that filled Harry’s mind, and tears shed for his friend, Jimmy Sopwith-Dane.

They had been stuck in their psychedelic prison for almost a week, their meagre pot of money diminishing, along with their spirits. Jemma continued with the task of trying to
contact the relatives, while Harry beat himself up. He had been the last person to talk to Sloppy, might have talked him out of it, but hung up on him instead. Not his fault, Jemma said. Then whose
fault was it? The weekend
Mirror
carried two pages of invented bilge devoted entirely to him, under the headline of ‘Hero to Zero’, and they didn’t even know about how
he’d let down Sloppy. He hated himself, and hated those who were truly responsible all the more.

‘Jem,’ he said one evening, ‘I have to go to the funeral.’

‘You can’t. It’s too risky.’

‘I know. But I have to.’

She was going to argue, but the pain in his eyes told her it was pointless.

‘Where is it?’

‘West Sussex. I’ll need the fare.’

‘We don’t have much money left. They’ve stopped my cards, Harry. Just as you said.’

It meant that Arkwright was getting closer. She was at risk, too.

‘I need the fare,’ he insisted again, stubborn, a little fierce.

‘You’ll also need a jacket. A suit, even.’

‘Oh, save me,’ he sighed wearily, in misery.

‘Don’t worry. I’ll take you to my favourite shop.’

When they found the dark suit at the local branch of Oxfam, it was clear why it had been left behind. It had lived several dry cleanings too far, but it fit, almost.

They had expected few to attend. He was a suicide, a failure. A man’s failures linger, long after his triumphs have been mislaid. Not even his mother-in-law would come.
There was his wife, of course, and his daughters, mourning the man they had once known, then lost, angry that he had allowed them no chance to help bring him back from the darkness. Yet as the time
of the funeral drew near in a Norman church of oak beams and stained glass, the pews began to fill. Men, in suits or dark blazers, old comrades with their regimental ties and memories, enough of
them to fill the church all the way back to the old Tudor font. The family turned round, struggling to believe what they saw, but regaining pride.

The battle flags of the local regiment, long extinct, hung down from their masts along the nave, some so old they were little more than gauze. At the rear of the church the men of the Royal
British Legion held their own flags, furled, in gauntleted hands.

Harry arrived shortly before the coffin. He had no tie and he hadn’t shaved for a week, hoping that it would give him some measure of disguise, but every man there ecognized him. He tried
to slip quietly into an end pew yet heads turned. Soon the entire congregation knew of his presence. A man on the run, still one of theirs. Briggsie, the Regimental Sergeant Major of an earlier
era, walked slowly up to Harry, with all eyes upon him. He saluted, shook Harry’s hand in welcome, before walking back to his place. Almost everyone there knew of what he had done in Iraq and
Armagh, some had even heard the stories of Afghanistan and the Colombian drug trail that had become a legend. That all mattered more than any detective sergeant named Arkwright.

The coffin arrived, pushed by anonymous men in black on a wheeled frame. As they entered the church, they were stopped, a Union flag appeared from somewhere and was draped over the coffin. Then,
as the cortege proceeded, the men of the Legion formed a guard of honour and lowered their flags, now unfurled, in sadness as he passed.

They sang traditional hymns,
Onward Christian Soldiers
and
I Vow to Thee My Country
, stirring stuff when sung with strong male voices, the morning sun shone through stained glass
and filled the church with rich dappled colours, and the oration, delivered by an old regimental padre, told the girls of sacrifices their father had made for others that he would never have told
them himself. Even old men were shedding silent tears. And the time had come for the coffin to be taken. The bearers appeared once more, but as they approached Harry stepped forward, laid a hand on
the sleeve of the funeral director, and took a place. And in an instant there were others, beside the coffin, to lift their old friend and bear him on their shoulders to his final resting place in
the graveyard, through the ranks of the men who had known him best.

And it was done. Sloppy was gone. They filed away solemnly, still bound by their sense of loss.

Harry was at the lychgate when he tugged a sleeve. ‘Corporal Battersby.’

The man turned. ‘Hello, Boss. How are you, sir?’

‘I think you know. Daft bloody question.’

‘Sorry about all the fuss, sir.’

‘You used to be a canny sod at transport.’

‘Thank you, sir. Still am. In the motor trade.’

‘Wheels outside?’

‘The Beamer parked outside the pub.’

‘I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.’

‘Of course you wouldn’t.’

‘There’s another funeral in Salisbury. Two hours’ time. Think we can make it?’

The corporal scratched his chin dubiously. ‘Not if you stand there prattling, we won’t.’

Summer seemed endless that year. As they pulled up, a workman in shirtsleeves was mowing the deep grass verges beside the driveway and the heavy air held the scent of roses and
lilac. An excellent day for an Englishman, and for a cremation.

They could see that the ceremony had already started. The hearse and another funeral car were parked in their bays outside the main entrance to the crematorium, but there was little sign of
anyone else, five cars in the public parking area. The undertaker’s staff waited patiently in the shade, stifling in their suits of black. As Harry walked towards the entrance he could hear
desultory singing coming from within, the voices masked by the efforts of the organist. He checked the name on the card outside. Felix Bartholomew Wilton.

‘You’re late. It’s almost over, sir,’ one of the pallbearers said.

As Harry gazed into the brick-built funeral hall, he found a gathering of seventeen, which included the vicar, and Felix had already been dispatched, sent on his way to the burning place below,
while the vicar was delivering his final blessing. Then he was done, the mourners raised their bent heads, the organist began upon his endeavours once again, pumping out a suitably anodyne tune,
and the vicar walked out from behind his podium to the front row of the congregation where he grasped the hand of a woman clad in expensive mourning black and whispered condolences in her ear.

‘Who is that?’ Harry asked the pallbearer.

‘The lady? That’s the deceased’s wife.’

It was as though he had been hit by a bullet. Something exploded inside him so unexpectedly that the body didn’t know how to react, left him numb, his heart racing while it tried to find
something it could recognize out of this sudden chaos. He heard his own voice as though it came from far away.

‘He . . . was married?’

‘Why, yes, sir. Mrs Patricia Wilton. Although she doesn’t go by her married name, of course.’

‘She . . . doesn’t?’

‘Calls herself Vaine. Patricia Vaine.’

The pallbearer scurried off to his duties, leaving Harry scrambling for his senses. He’d had no idea. Stupid of him, to have jumped to conclusions, that a man who prowled gay haunts
wouldn’t be married. After all, he could name at least two Cabinet ministers who . . .

As Harry struggled with his surprise, he watched as the woman thanked the vicar, nodded to those around her, put on dark glasses and began to walk out. Then she stopped. Took off her glasses
once more. She had seen him standing in the entrance. And he could tell from her expression that she recognized him, knew him, and not just from newspapers. The eyes were filled with more than
recognition, there was also alarm and a little fear in them, too. She pulled her phone from an elegant bag and pressed a single button, began talking, without ever once taking her eyes off him.
That she knew him, and wanted him out of her life, was confirmed some minutes later when two patrol cars, lights and sirens clearing their way, came hurtling down the approach road. And they, in
turn, confirmed that Harry had found what he had come searching for. The next link.

The patrol cars set off in pursuit of the BMW that had been seen speeding away from the crematorium. It took them several miles before they caught up with Battersby and managed to persuade him
to pull over, but by that time Harry was tucked away on the back seat of a bus travelling in entirely the opposite direction.

It was market day in Salisbury, the centre was milling with people. Excellent cover. Harry had a head start, but he knew it wouldn’t last long. They would be searching for
him, watching the train and bus stations, and he had less than fifty pounds in his pocket. He couldn’t keep running for ever. There was also something else, other forces more powerful than
Arkwright, which were hunting him. He still didn’t know what, but now he had a name. Patricia Vaine. And this was her territory, her home patch. Still more danger but also, perhaps,
opportunity.

He avoided the main streets, keeping an alert eye for those who wished him ill, and when he saw an approaching patrol car he slipped into the nearest shop. It was a computer repair place, one of
those that ekes out a living on a side street, not trying to compete with the bully boys of the trading estate or the High Street. A bleary-eyed youth with tussled hair and John Lennon glasses
stood behind the counter, idly flicking through a tattooing magazine. He looked up, rather like a shipwrecked sailor spotting a ship on the horizon, not expecting it to make land.

‘Hi,’ Harry said. The patrol car still hadn’t passed by, was loitering, and Harry needed an excuse. It also gave him an idea; circumstance had perhaps played him a fair hand
for a change. ‘Do you have any laptops for sale?’

‘New or second-hand?’

‘Either.’

‘We only do recons.’

‘Something I can connect to the Internet with while I’m travelling.’

‘They all do that.’

‘Nothing too fancy. But I’d like to have a look at one with the operating system already set up. Don’t have a lot of experience with this sort of stuff.’