Two Faced (Harry Tyler Book 2) (26 page)

Harry felt his knees wobble slightly. This was the time in old detective books where someone would whack the back of his nut with a cosh, BOSH! so that – what was that line that always made him grin? – a black pool would open up at his feet and he’d dive in.

Going out sparko would make dying so much easier. But when had Harry Tyler ever done things the easy way? He took a deep breath and focused on his immediate surroundings. Bernadette, the treacherous slag, was still out cold on the floor. Donovan stood to his immediate left, smiling slyly, his mortuary assistant Moran at his side. Behind them, chomping at the bit, were two of the biggest lumps of murderous Mick hod-carriers who had ever hummed ‘A Nation Once Again’; and beyond them, behind the bar, lurked the mysterious Dinger Bell, another fucking turn-coat.

Five to one. Not good, not good at all.

Harry mentally bet a month’s wages that they were all packing. All he had was the empty pint glass in his hand. The Taffs had better odds at Rourke’s Drift, and at least back then our lads had guns. Still, he could glass one of them good and proper, take one dirty terrorist scumbag off the streets. Why not? Either way he was a dead man walking.

On the floor, Bernadette stirred and groaned but was a long way from awake. The movement seemed to agitate Harry’s waiting assassins. ‘As I said, Mr Policeman, move yourself,’ grunted the biggest lump. ‘We don’t have all night.’ Harry knew immediately that he would smash the gaping mouth of his glass into the big man’s eyes and nose then try and slice open his jugular with the remnants before the comrades took him out of the game permanently. He steeled himself for his last moment of glory, his finger tightening around the glass. Before Harry could move, a shotgun blast roared out across the bar. Everyone spun round except Donovan. The left side of his face had been completely blown away. As the impact carried his corpse to the right, the shotgun spewed out a second cartridge and the man mountain who had been hurrying Harry went down like the Belgrano. Blood and saliva pumped out of his mouth, a miniature fountain of crimson ooze. Dinger! All eyes were on the Ulsterman as he reloaded his double-barrelled Purdey’s. Moran came out of shock with a yelp and reached for his Saturday Night Special. He was quick but not quick enough. A shotgun shell had lifted him three feet off the ground before Moran’s finger squeezed the trigger, loosing a round pointlessly into the floorboards. Most of his intestines seemed to spill from his stomach as he landed. The second heavy, the last Provo standing, raised his hands in surrender. He was a moment too late. Dinger’s shell punched a hole the size of Nigel Benn’s fist into his chest. The big fellow swayed then crashed into a table like a pole-axed ox.

Harry watched uncertainly as Dinger whacked two more shells into his shotgun. Bernadette had come round and was on all fours, adding her vomit to the mess of spilt blood and body parts. Harry looked quizzically at Dinger who shrugged as if to say, ‘It’s down to you.’ Harry held out his left hand. ‘Here, let me help you up, Bernie,’ he said. As she reached up gratefully to grab him Harry booted her hard in the ribs and went to deliver another blow.

‘NO!’ Dinger had vaulted the bar and was by his side. ‘Leave her alone, Harry,’ he barked. ‘Don’t kick a woman, that’s no way for a man to behave.’

Dinger Bell shook his head in disgust and rolled Bernadette over with his right toe. He had the urge to smash a beer glass into her face, to make her scream, just like so many innocents had screamed in this endless war of attrition that politicians called the Peace Process. He wanted to hear her agony, and then to finish it the way she deserved, surgically removing the voice box from her throat with a broken bottle.

That’s what he felt like doing, but to Dinger that was the ‘Provvie’ way, and he couldn’t allow himself to act like that.

He lowered his voice to a soft whisper and lifted her head so he could look at her one last time, ‘You say you’re British Intelligence and that you’re loyal to your Queen and country, but all I’ve seen from you is treachery and betrayal. Your kind don’t care about Britain or the British people, you’re just drones at the beck and call of all those chinless Tory wonders and New Labour’s self-serving social-worker caste. Between them they’ve sold out generations of decent folk more times than I care to remember. You’re filth, Bernadette. You’re lower than vermin.’

Then he shot her straight through the back of her skull.

Her blood splattered his trousers.

‘For pity’s sake,’ the Ulsterman exploded. ‘I’ll have to get these cleaned now.’ Harry grinned. Dinger glowered.

‘So that just leaves you to take care of them, Mr Tyler.’

The detective froze. What new shit was this? Dinger smiled and put a slug into the juke-box.

‘That’s better. It’ll never have to play “The Boys Behind The Wire” again.’

Harry was speechless.

‘Just fucking with ya, mate,’ said Dinger. ‘We’ll be off now then.’

‘You lousy fucking long-faced bastard.’

‘Now now, H,’ laughed Dinger.

‘You no-good streak of Belfast piss.’

‘Now, is that any way to speak to your saviour?’

‘Don’t talk to me.’

‘A thank, you would be nice.’

‘Yeah? Well, maybe you’ll get one when you’re forgiven.’

‘You must have been shit, scared.’

‘Nah, not for one minute mate … although I think one of these bastards must have pissed in me pants.’

Dinger roared. ‘I’d offer you a drink, but the clientele look like rotten company and we really ought to get going.’

‘Just as well, because in the circumstances I’d have thought better of saying, “Your round or mine?”’

They stepped over the lifeless bodies of their fallen foe and made for the door. Harry felt suddenly drained. He had much to ask but now wasn’t the time. Dinger stepped outside first and scanned the road. He led the way across the gravel into the darkened car park, his shotgun held at waist level. There had been a Jeep out here with two people inside it when Harry had arrived, one of them presumably the late Bernadette. The vehicle had gone. Dinger crunched his way over to a Peugeot saloon and held the back door open. ‘Lie across here and keep your head down,’ he commanded. Harry did as he was told. He lay speechless as Dinger drove off, replaying the events of the night. Clearly his execution had been sanctioned from on high, which meant he would now have everyone from village bobbies to the man from fucking UNCLE on his tail. What a mess. After ten minutes he heard Dinger’s electric window lower, the car slowed and there was a distant splash – presumably the shooter had gone. Harry tried to sleep but couldn’t. He wanted to ask questions but thought better of it. Dinger would talk in his own time.

A further forty to fifty minutes passed before Dinger Bell turned into a single track lane and then hair-pinned into a driveway before stopping.

‘Harry,’ he said softly. ‘You’re to wait here. Don’t get out of the car.’

‘OK, mate.’

Dinger left. Five minutes later he was back. ‘Come on, mate. All clear.’

They were parked in front of a cottage. The front door was slightly ajar. Harry followed Dinger straight through into the living room where an elderly woman sat in an armchair stroking a Burmese cat in front of a burning wood fire. She didn’t look up.

‘Keep coming, Harry.’

The back of the cottage opened up into a kitchen. Dinger turned left into a corridor and opened the second door along.

‘This is your room, H. There’s a bath. I suggest you use it.’

He flicked on the light. The room was clean and orderly.

‘First things first,’ Dinger continued. ‘Strip!’

Harry undressed down to his Tommy Hilfiger boxers.

‘Everything.’

Harry stepped out and stood naked, not bothering to hide his embarrassment.

‘Hand everything over,’ Dinger commanded. ‘I’ll take the watch too.’ He shook his head. ‘What a waste to womankind it would have been if they’d topped you.’

Harry half-smiled. ‘You on the turn, mate?’

‘We’ll talk tomorrow. Is there anything you need before I go?’

‘Have you got anything to read, Dinger?’

‘Hang on.’

Dinger went into the neighbouring room and came back with an old hardback book.

‘This is all the reading you’ll need. Now, take a bath and I’ll see you at breakfast. Don’t leave this room until I come for you, OK? For security, you see. That and the fact that we shoot streakers over here.’

‘Yeah. Laters, mate. And Dinger?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Thanks.’

Harry shut the door behind him. He looked at the book in his hands. It was a King James Bible.

The cockerel outside woke Harry minutes before the knock on the door. Dinger didn’t wait to be told to come in. He was carrying a hold-all.

‘There’s all you need in here for a shave and a clean-up, mate,’ he said. ‘The clothes are the same size as the ones I took away and burned last night. Come through for breakfast when you’re ready.’

‘Ta, Dinger. I’ll be right through.’

As the Ulsterman turned to leave Harry glimpsed another burly man standing behind the door. Dinger closed it behind him. Harry got out of bed and emptied out the hold-all. There was deodorant, a toothbrush, toothpaste, thermal underwear, old-fashioned blue jeans, a nondescript sweatshirt, grey socks and a pair of new Timberland boots. Nothing that would make him standout. Harry brushed his teeth and examined his face in the mirror. If he was going on the missing list, he’d need to change his looks quickly; grow a beard and maybe shave the middle of his head to give himself a funny old Mick Miller centre parting.

He wandered through for breakfast. There was a huge plate of freshly cooked bacon, sausages and scrambled egg on the table. Dinger Bell sat on his own eating jam on toast.

‘Help yourself, H,’ he said. ‘There’s tea in the pot and coffee in the perculator. There’s cereal in the cupboard if you fancy.’

‘That’s fine, mate, a fry-up will do nicely.’

‘Did you sleep, Harry?’

‘Like a log.’

‘You’re a cool bastard. Must have been all those years of lying, eh? To the world and to yourself, no doubt; what did you say to me in Blackpool? “I’m a trader, like you.” I can’t remember a word about you being an undercover copper.’

‘Well, come on, Dinger, you haven’t been entirely straight with me, have you? What was a UDA man doing south of the border wrapped up with that poisonous nest of vipers?’

‘Me? I was doing what you do, Harry, getting inside information.’

‘You’d infiltrated the provisional IRA?’

‘It wasn’t that hard. My family is from just outside Cork, Great Grandad moved us North during the ethnic cleansing of Prods from the South just after partition. I still have cousins down there. I got work with one of them on a Dublin building site and was asked to bounce in the local bars. Most of the bouncers are Provo run, and with me being a bright boy, saying all the right things, it was a matter of months before I was on the inside working for Donovan.’

‘But why?’

‘We got word PIRA were planning a major offensive in the North if, or should I say when, the so-called Peace Process falters. My mission was intelligence gathering, to make sure we could hit all the right places in return. I was doing very well until you turned up.’

‘And you jeopardised your mission for me?’

‘You’d saved my life, Harry. I’d given you my word that I would stand by you in return. But nothing’s really jeopardised, they don’t know who or what I was. All the news reports have put the carnage down to internecine warfare. Now why do you think the press has been told that? The place was torched after we left – by British Intelligence, we suspect. And there has been no mention of Bernadette or yourself. It’s a complete cover-up. Nobody outside of that little group even knew I was there, so if I’m needed to go back in I can.’

Harry stared at him. ‘How did you get into this, mate?’

‘I was born into it, but the true answer is I signed up ten years ago, the day after a car bomb in Finaghy killed my sister and my two-year-old niece.’

‘Sorry to hear that.’

‘Not as sorry as I was.’

‘So, where now for me?’

‘You’re safe enough with us, mate. We’ll move on soon’ – Dinger looked at his watch – ‘very soon, so eat up. We’ll get you back to England if that’s what you want; but you’ll have to create a new identity for yourself. We can get you paperwork and to a safe house in Lancashire if you can stand the mushy peas but after that you’ll be on your own, I’m afraid.’

Harry shrugged. ‘Suits me, mate, condition more or less normal.’

Dinger went off to make a call. Harry ate in silence. The Ulsterman returned as a vehicle pulled up outside.

‘Come on, H,’ he said. ‘Time to go. Get your hold-all.’

There was a small supermarket delivery van parked up close to the front door. Harry clasped Dinger’s hand.

‘Thanks again, mate.’

‘Just say we’re even now, OK?’

‘Well, if I can ever do the same for you, if you ever need to get away from this hell-hole I’ve got connections all over the Med.’

‘Thanks, wee man, and I’ll keep it in mind. Maybe someday, but as our beloved government keeps giving the Provos a new lease of life, Ulster still needs me here. So you get away to your matchstick men and pig’s trotters.’

Dinger opened the van door. There was a chair at the far end. Dinger told Harry to sit on it before a spotty teenager loaded large cases of produce in front of him, obscuring him from view should the rear doors be opened.

‘There’s a length of rope behind your head, mister,’ the lad said. ‘That’s for you to hang on to when we go round corners. The chair is secured but you’re not.’

For the next hour or so Harry hung on to it for dear life as the old van bumped and skidded on its journey to a destination he could only guess at. When it finally halted, it was anyone’s guess which was the most bruised, Harry or the fruit. The driver’s door opened and closed. Harry could make out three or four voices a short distance from the vehicle. The rear doors opened, lighting up the ceiling above him. A voice called out, ‘Are you OK in there, Harry?’