She swallowed hard. She hadn’t bargained on him bringing that up.
' Still haven't told Russell about your first marriage and child? Did you give a shit about how humiliated Matthew must’ve felt when you left him and the baby?'
She looked daggers at him but didn't speak.
' No. I didn't think so. It would make your life look untidy and you can’t stand a mess, can you. Your first baby was no good to you because the poor little thing had already committed two cardinal sins before it had even taken its first breath. First he was a boy and you didn’t want a boy and second he had Down’s syndrome and that just didn’t fit into your neat and tidy colour co-ordinated world, did it. It really wouldn’t go with the image you wanted of the perfect family so you packed your bags one day and left him and his father. They were just inconvenient to you'.
' You really are a bastard' said Lynne, weakly.
' I never thought I’d ever use Matthew and the baby in an argument against you but then I never thought you’d ever use the death of my parents in an argument against me’.
‘ Matthew is taking good care of him’
‘ Who, your son? I can’t call him by his name because you didn’t get that far did you. Does Amelia know she has an older brother?’
‘ It wouldn’t be fair on either of them!’
‘ You mean it wouldn’t be fair on you because you’d have to deal with the consequences of your actions like everybody else has to! Well yes I’m sure your son is well taken care of because he’s away from you. He’ll have the chance to grow into a decent human being instead of the self-obsessed little madam that Amelia is going to be’.
Lynne paused and then asked. ‘ Have you met this Linda?’
‘ Lynne, don’t speak her name like it’s vomit you’re trying to spit through your teeth. No I haven’t met her but I’ve no reason to think of her as a bad person’.
‘ She’s taken my husband away from me!’
‘ No, you drove him away!’.
‘ I did not!’
‘ And now you’re trying to act like the victim. Well like I said Lynne, grow up’.
Freddie Burnside decided to defy Angela Patterson and fly over to Manchester to be there for Derek. His conscience had got the better of him. But when he got to the house in Oldham that Derek was staying at, Derek turned on him. He bent him backwards over a dining table and pushed the end of his gun into the flesh of his neck. Angela had got to Derek first and told him that Freddie had killed Shaun.
‘ Why would Angela Patterson lie?’ Derek bellowed. ‘ She sounded pretty convincing when she called me’.
‘ Because I had something on her!’
‘ What do you mean?’
‘ Angela killed her husband and got me to dispose of the body. I said I would if she handed over another five thousand. I shouldn’t have accepted the first lot of money from her given the circumstances but Derek, I was desperate. Five thousand was like winning the lottery for me, you’ve got to understand that. I’ve never let you down before, Derek, so can’t you cut me a bit of slack for God’s sake?’
‘ You sold me out for money, Freddie’.
‘ I had to do something for my family, Derek. Just for a bloody change. If I’d been that intent on doing you harm then why would I have flown over here today? I’d have taken the five grand and walked off into the sunset but I didn’t, Derek. It’s Angela Patterson who’s betrayed you, Derek, not me’.
Derek loosened his grip on Freddie and pulled his gun away. His eyes were all over the place whilst he tried to get a hold on what was going on.
‘ Angela never gave a damn about you for twenty years, Derek’ said Freddie, sensing the moment to be a little more brave. ‘ I stood by you the whole of that time and this is the bloody thanks I get. You take her word over mine?’
‘ Then who did kill Shaun?’
‘ It was Natalie, the Judas’ daughter’.
‘ What are you saying?’
‘ Natalie is the Judas’ daughter, Derek. She was the one who killed him’.
‘ And where is she now?’
‘ Heading for Dublin and a life far away from her past’ said Freddie.
‘ I don’t know what’s going on, Freddie, so I don’t’ said Derek, his face turned to the wall. ‘ I came out of gaol to a world that may as well be another planet to me. And now Shaun … my wee boy … I never even saw him growing up. He hadn’t even started school when I was sent down. Then Angela Mills tells me that you killed him. What am I supposed to think, Freddie?’
‘ That Angela Mills is mixing it’ said Freddie. ‘ She told you I’d killed Shaun because she was mad as hell at me for getting ten grand out of her. But I could never kill your boy, Derek. For God’s sake, you must realise that’.
‘ Alright, alright, I will believe you about that’.
‘ It all comes back to the Judas, Derek’.
‘ Oh so it does, Freddie, so it does. He’s a dead man walking. I’m playing games with him, Freddie, and it must be driving him mad. But he’ll be dead before I am. Make no mistake about that’.
‘ Angela was mad as hell that you’d used some of the stuff Kevin Matheson got for us to blow up Graham Armstrong’.
‘ Yeah, well, she’ll get over it’ said Derek who then turned to Freddie. ‘ Why did you wait to tell me that Shaun was dead?’
‘ You know why, Derek’ said Freddie who’d seen that look in Derek’s eyes before. It terrified him. Angela Patterson had done a good job on Derek.
‘ Remind me how much she paid you, Freddie?’
‘ Five grand’ said Freddie, weakly.
‘ How much?’ Derek demanded.
‘ Five grand!’
‘ Five lousy grand! You sold me out for five lousy rotten grand! My son was dead and all you could do was count fucking bank notes?’
‘ Derek, I … ‘
‘ … ah save it for when we meet in hell!’
Derek shot Freddie in the neck, bursting his jugular and sending torrents of Freddie’s blood all over the room. Freddie struggled desperately to hold on to life but in a matter of seconds it was all over and his body which had been flailing about madly was suddenly lying there motionless. It brought to an end a friendship that had lasted decades.
.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Alice went round to Ian’s flat to give him all the details of his final assignment. She hadn’t bargained on having to contend with someone who showed more spine than some of the operatives she had to deal with.
‘ I’m not going anywhere’ said Mark, firmly.
‘ Look, the information we’ll be discussing is classified’ Alice stated.
‘ Then get me to sign the bloody official secrets act if you want’ Mark countered. ‘ I know things that could cost me my life and I’m not in the mood for being dismissed’.
‘ I don’t think you understand …
‘ … no it’s you who doesn’t understand’ said Mark. ‘ You’re not dealing here with some brainless poof who throws a tantrum if someone hands him the wrong hairspray. I saw the look on Graham Armstrong’s face just before he was murdered so don’t hide behind procedure with me’.
She was furious and looked up sharply at Ian.
‘ Mark stays, Alice’ said Ian, noting the annoyance on her face. ‘ Or you leave. That’s the way we do things round here now’.
Alice’s blood was boiling at the way they’d cornered her.
‘ This is totally against my better judgement’ said Alice. ‘ Obviously, Mark, it hasn’t been made clear to you how much danger you’re putting yourself in’.
‘ Oh it’s been explained to me in great detail’ said Mark. ‘ And since I possess a tad of grey matter I have managed to work a few things out for myself’.
‘ An amateur like you getting in the way could risk the whole operation!’
‘ Well then you’d better make sure you get the organising of it right then hadn’t you’ said Mark, calmly. ‘ It seems to me that’s the best way of ensuring nothing goes wrong. That’s your
responsibility’.
Mark felt like he’d been given a slow, painful death by the sharpness in her eyes but then she seemed to cool it a little.
‘ You’re to stay well out of it’ she ordered.
‘ Agreed’ said Mark.
‘ That much is not open to discussion or debate’.
‘ I’ll make sure he complies’ said Ian, smiling at Mark knowingly. ‘ I’ve got an interest in his survival’.
‘ You can trust me, Alice’ said Mark. ‘ I’m not your enemy. Think of me as the friend you never knew you had’.
‘ Then sit down and don’t interrupt’ said Alice who wouldn’t tolerate any fuck ups from any quarter. Her bloody neck was on the line. ‘ This, after all, is a briefing’.
Alice turned off the main road through
Chorlton and into one of the leafy avenues that made her think she could be in any suburb of any city in the country. At the end of the row of indistinctive semis was the Irish community centre and a sizeable crowd had gathered to get a glimpse of their VIP visitor who was due to arrive any minute. Journalists and television news cameras were also there and in amongst the throng was a face she recognised. She hadn’t taken to Mark Earnshaw initially but during their exchange in Ian’s living room she couldn’t help but develop a grudging respect for his directness and that had made her think. She parked her car just short of the centre and went up to him.
‘ I thought I told you to stay away’ she said.
‘ And did you really think I would do that?’ said Mark.
‘ Do you ever do as you’re told?’
‘ Sometimes’ said Mark. ‘ But only if I can see the merit in it’.
‘ Well come and sit in the car with me’ said Alice. ‘ And I don’t care if you see the merit in it or not’.
The centre was ringed with police. Mark had been standing in the crowds outside but there were more inside the centre, presumably they were the ones who were really ‘well in’ with the management. He didn’t like elitism. He didn’t like the idea of favoured sons and daughters but he knew they existed in every organisation and every sort of club.
‘ He’s going to get quite a welcome’ said Mark as he sat in Alice’s car.
‘ Probably better than he gets at home at the moment’ said Alice ‘ He’s been accused of taking bribes and there’s a political scandal brewing around it’.
The Irish prime minister was making a visit to Irish communities in various British cities. Today it was the turn of Manchester and they knew that Derek Campbell was planning to use the visit to try and assassinate him. It was the central part of Angela Patterson and Peter Irvine’s plan to wreck the Good Friday agreement, smash through the consensus that had led to the devolved assembly at Stormont, and lure the IRA back into the armed struggle.
‘ How long will he be here?’ Mark asked, sitting in the passenger seat of Alice’s car. The inside of it was so plain, neat, and tidy. Didn’t she ever have a coffee that came in one of those plastic cups that she forgot to throw away? Obviously not judging by what he could, or couldn’t, see around him.
‘ About an hour. He’s going to have lunch here and then go down to Old Trafford for United’s opening season match against Sunderland. Apparently he’s a huge Man U fan’.
‘ You say Freddie Burnside has been found dead’ said Mark.
‘ Yes. Derek Campbell is on his own now’.
‘ Where did they find Freddie Burnside?’
‘ At a house in Oldham belonging to a Tyrone Bradley who’s been involved in it all right from the start although his idea of killing means getting rid of Asians, his own form of ethnic cleansing. When white men started killing each other in his own living room it made him wet his pants so he turned himself in to us’.
‘ Tyrone Bradley is a racist scumbag’ said Mark ‘ I hope they put him in a cell with the most nasty, most vicious Asian they can find and I hope he gets the fucking crap kicked out of him’.
‘ You don’t like him then’.
‘ I’ve no time for racists, Alice, especially ones who are involved in the torching of businesses where there might be children sleeping upstairs. They’re scum as far as I’m concerned’.
‘ So where do you draw your moral line?’
‘ What do you mean?’
‘ Well you’re living with somebody who’s killed, mostly on behalf of the state but initially as part of a terrorist gang. You excuse all of that because he’s your lover?’
‘ Excuse is the wrong word’ said Mark, feeling as if she was trying to trap him but certain of his determination to avoid it. ‘ I accept it as having been necessary’.
‘ Interesting. You took a lot on with Ian’.
‘ I’ve never been afraid of taking a risk’ said Mark ‘ I’ve never been the sort of person who needs to have every t crossed and every i dotted before I can make any kind of move. Flying by the seat of your pants is much more interesting’.