‘Special Boat Section, actually. One of the best. Did a superb job during the Falklands War, led one of the advance reconnaissance teams sent in to identify the Argentinian positions. Recorded nine kills during a four-day mission.’
‘Impressive,’ said Donaldson.
‘Problem was,’ said Grey, studying a small patch of green mould on the trunk of one of the plum trees, ‘two of them were SAS troopers. That’s when he came to our attention.’
‘What!’ exploded Donaldson.
‘We hushed it all up of course, we were getting enough bad publicity at the time as it was.’
By ‘we’ Donaldson assumed he meant the British. ‘What happened, sir?’ he asked.
‘He joined one of our more low profile departments.’
‘No, sir, I mean what happened to the SAS men?’
‘Howells was sitting in a hole a hundred yards or so from an Argentinian artillery unit when two SAS soldiers practically fell on top of him. According to Howells one of them was about to shoot and he reacted instinctively, killed one with a punch to the throat and knocked the other to the ground and broke his neck. It was over in seconds, apparently, and the Argentinians didn’t hear a thing. He left the bodies in the hole. One of life’s little tragedies.’
Donaldson thought for a moment that Grey had made a joke, but realized that he was serious.
‘We took him in and trained him. He was good, very good. One of the best, in fact. Ten clean kills in a two-year period. Never any problems, not as far as the technical side was concerned, anyway. I am going to have to speak to Perkins about this.’
‘Perkins?’ said Donaldson, totally confused.
‘My gardener. He’s going to have to do something about this mould. It can kill the tree if it isn’t treated, you know.’
Donaldson didn’t know, and frankly he didn’t give a toss. He had only one tree at the end of his pocket-handkerchief of a garden.
‘He started to enjoy the work, that was the trouble.’ Donaldson realized Grey had switched back to Howells, though he was still studying the mould intently.
‘The psychologists picked it up during his monthly check-up. He was fretting when he wasn’t working and they discovered that he’d put a little too much, shall we say, effort into his last job. His target was a Libyan student who planted that messy bomb in Manchester some time back, you remember the one? Killed three people. Nothing we could prove in court so Howells’ department was told to arrange a termination. Howells decided to make it look like a car accident. And he did, too. By the time they cut the Libyan out of the wreckage there was barely an unbroken bone in his body.’
‘So?’ said Donaldson, though he knew what was coming.
‘So that’s the way the Libyan went into the car. Howells killed him with his bare hands – slowly and very painfully.’
That was one of the crazy things about their line of work, mused Donaldson. You could do the job, and do it professionally, but once you started to enjoy it, you were finished. The psychologists reckoned that only a madman could enjoy killing, but they never asked if a truly sane man would do the job in the first place. Going by the names and expense sheets that went across Donaldson’s desk, three years was as long as they normally lasted in the job, though some could go on for much longer. The CIA was rumoured to have a grandmother on their books who’d been active for nigh on thirty-five years.
‘You know why he wasn’t transferred?’ Donaldson didn’t, of course. ‘We tried to shift him over to a desk job, but Howells wouldn’t have any of it. Said he wanted to carry on doing what he was good at, what we had trained him to do. Said he wouldn’t accept a transfer.’
That happened sometimes, when operatives got so addicted to the adrenalin rush that they couldn’t bear to lose it. And if they were forcibly moved into another job they’d find another outlet for their frustrations and innocent bystanders would get hurt. It happened, but when it did the man, or woman, was swiftly retired. And retirement didn’t mean a pension and a cottage in Devon. Retirement meant permanent. It was never spoken about openly, not at Donaldson’s level, anyway. But every now and again a name would just disappear from the approved-expenses list and the file would be recalled by Personnel and never seen again. Donaldson had breathed a sigh of relief when Howells’ name and file had gone. The man was a nutter, a dangerous nutter.
The two men walked out of the trees and back along the lawn towards the house. Grey picked up a small dead branch and threw it for the dogs. They rushed after it, barking and barging into each other. They reached it at the same time and grabbed an end each, pulling it and grunting with pleasure. Donaldson knew exactly how the stick felt.
‘Where is he now, sir?’
‘Bali.’
‘Bali?’
‘Indonesia.’
This was becoming bizarre, thought Donaldson. In the space of a few minutes the conversation had gone from a threat to destroy a Chinese power station to a retired killer lying on a beach in Indonesia. And somewhere in the middle, like the stick caught between two dogs, was Donaldson himself.
‘We want to use Howells to clear up this Daya Bay business,’ said Grey.
‘Daya Bay?’
‘That’s where the nuclear reactor is. We want Howells to defuse the situation.’
He didn’t seem to realize the pun. The black Labrador had won the tussle over the stick and came running over to Grey to present the trophy, and receive a pat on the head for her trouble. The other dog pretended to lose interest and wandered among the trees, sniffing at roots.
‘Why Howells, sir?’ asked Donaldson, hoping it didn’t sound like criticism.
‘We need someone who can’t be traced back to us, someone who isn’t on our books, and that rules out staffers and freelances. The Chinese mustn’t know that we know, if you see what I mean. So any action we take must be completely covert.’
‘But surely that would also rule out Howells, sir?’ Donaldson though he knew what was coming and he prayed to God that he was wrong. He didn’t want to meet Howells again – ever.
‘Because he used to work for us? That isn’t a problem. He’s never worked in Hong Kong or China, so it’s unlikely he would be recognized. His mental problems and his retirement are no secret, and if anything goes wrong it would be assumed that he’d just gone on the rampage. I can’t think anybody would believe that the British Government would use such an agent.’
Donaldson agreed with that one. And his own involvement was starting to give him an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. His urge to go to the toilet was increasing by the minute. Maybe it was the tea, maybe it was the cold air, or maybe it was the thought of working with Howells. That seemed to be what Grey was suggesting.
‘I must repeat that it is crucial that the Chinese do not find out that the British Government is involved. The negotiations between the triads and the Chinese are being conducted at the highest level in Peking and there is only a handful of people involved. If they discover that we know what is going on, there is a good chance it will expose our source. There must be no connection at all seen between Howells and my department.’
Which, thought Donaldson, is why I’m here. To provide the distance.
‘Howells isn’t the man he was,’ continued Grey.
‘In what way, sir?’
Grey thought for a while, oblivious of the dog shuffling backwards and forwards at his feet waiting for the saliva-smeared stick to be thrown.
‘Have you ever had a tooth capped?’ he asked.
Donaldson shook his head. What the hell did teeth have to do with this? There were times when he wondered if the older man really was starting to go gaga.
‘It’s worth doing if you’ve got a tooth that’s so badly rotted that it can’t be repaired with a normal amalgam filling. You build another tooth out of porcelain and metal and bond it to what’s left of the original tooth. It looks real and it functions as normal.’
He threw the stick hard and high and the dog hurtled after it as it curved through the air. The dog in the orchard pretended not to notice, but its tail wasn’t wagging.
‘Howells had a personality that was rotten to the core. For whatever reason, he’d got to the stage where he enjoyed inflicting pain, enjoyed killing. He spent six months in a private sanatorium while some of the best psychologists in the country tried to undo the damage – but to no avail. Their conclusion was that Geoff Howells could never be returned to society. He was facing a lifetime in a Broadmoor cell weaving baskets.’
The dog was back, stick in mouth, but Grey ignored her. The two men had returned to the back door of the house but Grey made no move to open it. Donaldson’s bladder was starting to hurt.
‘We decided instead to try a different method, which brings us back to the dental analogy. They produced a new personality and in effect grafted it on to the old one, just like capping a bad tooth. They used deep hypnosis and God knows what drugs to suppress all his killer instincts, dampened his feelings and emotions and overlaid them with a new set. He has the memories of what went before, but it’s as if they belong to someone else. To all intents and purposes Howells is now a confirmed pacifist, as docile as a lamb. We’ve done a few favours for the Indonesian Government over the years so we arranged for him to live there.’
Until he was needed again, thought Donaldson. Until now.
‘If he’s been neutralized, surely he’s no good to us now, sir,’ said Donaldson, more in hope than belief.
Grey smiled. ‘The conversion isn’t permanent. In the same way that a cap can be pulled off a tooth, the new personality can be removed to reveal the man he used to be. And it’s that man we need.’
‘I still don’t follow why it has to be Howells, sir. Surely we could use any freelance and just make sure our tracks are well covered.’
God, that sounded like a whine. Would Charlie Muffin have said that? Would Quiller refuse to take an assignment because it meant dealing with a psychopath/sociopath? If he had any bloody sense he would.
Grey shook his head. ‘No, you know how they work. They all keep safety deposit boxes with envelopes to be opened in the event of their deaths. And they don’t take kindly to being used, it can have a nasty habit of backfiring. No, Howells is perfect. He has no living relatives, he will follow instructions to the letter and he is . . .’
‘Expendable?’ asked Donaldson hopefully.
‘Exactly. I am glad we understand each other.’ He seized the doorknob and pushed open the wooden door, careful not to allow the panting Labrador in. He ushered Donaldson inside where they removed their boots, then led him into the sitting-room and picked up a manila file off a small mahogany side-table. ‘Sit down and read this. It goes without saying that I don’t want you to take notes.’ If it goes without saying, thought Donaldson, why mention it? ‘Come and see me when you’ve finished reading the file. I’ll be in the garden.’
Grey closed the door gently. A minute or so later Donaldson heard him let himself out of the back door and call for the dogs. He settled down into the chair and began to read, all thoughts of his bladder gone.
Donaldson spent the best part of an hour reading and re-reading the report. It was sketchy in parts, but when he’d finished Donaldson felt he knew a lot more about what made Howells tick. And it didn’t make him feel any easier about meeting the man.
The remoulding of his personality had been done by two top psychologists, one as part of a Government-sponsored research project he was doing at Bart’s in London: the other was a young high-flyer on attachment from the CIA.
As Grey had said, it had taken some six months to make Howells safe, if not sane, but the trigger to reactivate him consisted of just three colour-coded cards which had to be produced in the correct order. According to the detailed instructions which came with the report, Donaldson was first to ask Howells if he was ready to take on the assignment, to appeal to the man’s loyalty to his country. Then he was to offer him money. If the psychologists had done their job properly, Howells would spurn both offers. Donaldson was then to show him the cards which were contained in a white envelope. There would be little visible change but Donaldson was then to hand him a second envelope containing a full briefing. Simple, thought Donaldson. He slipped the two sealed envelopes into his inside jacket pocket and concentrated on memorizing the instructions. When he’d finished he took the file out into the back garden. This time he didn’t bother with the Wellingtons.
Grey was at the bottom of the garden, to the right of the orchard, gathering up dead grass and fallen twigs with a rake. As Donaldson approached Grey sprinkled lighter fluid over the damp pile and dropped on a lighted match. He stepped back with a satisfied smile on his face as the bonfire flared into life.
‘I’ve read the file, sir,’ said Donaldson, handing it over. Grey reached into his back pocket and pulled out a third envelope.
‘This contains your tickets and travelling expenses.’
Donaldson took it and put it into his pocket with the other two. He was starting to feel like a postman.
‘Your flight leaves tomorrow, Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong and then Garuda to Bali. I suggest you phone in sick first thing tomorrow morning. On no account are you to tell anyone where you are going. You’re not married, are you?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Family?’
‘My mother and father live in Cheshire. They won’t miss me.’
‘Good man,’ said Grey. ‘Can you see yourself out?’ he added, dismissing Donaldson with the rhetorical question.
When he heard the man’s car start up and drive off Grey dropped the file on top of the bonfire and watched as its edges browned and curled in the heat. As the pages shrivelled and burnt he absent-mindedly patted the black Labrador on the head.
‘Two birds with one stone, Lady,’ he said softly. ‘Two birds with one stone.’
Much the same thought was going through Donaldson’s mind some forty-eight hours later as his Garuda flight approached Denpasar airport. There were two things he liked best in the world. One was immersing himself in a good thriller and the other was having sex with small boys. Preferably small boys that were tied down and whimpering. The assignment from Grey looked set to satisfy both passions. He’d heard that the boys in Indonesia were simply gorgeous, big brown eyes and soft, smooth, brown bodies. Just the thought gave him a hard-on.