Hunter Killer (6 page)

Yeah, Danny thought. Like, a million. But none that his CO was likely to answer. And even Spud seemed lost for a clever remark.

‘In that case,’ Cartwright said, ‘go home and get some sleep. My feeling is you’re going to need it.’ He opened one of his desk drawers and produced a sealed brown envelope, which he handed to Danny. A London address was written on the front, and the envelope was heavy with what felt like keys.

Danny was experienced enough to realise there was no use arguing with the headshed. He was a soldier, and he’d just been given his orders. The briefing was over.

Like the CO had said: get over it.

Home, for Danny, was little more than a place to store his personal possessions. The life he’d chosen didn’t lend itself to comforts, and if Clara hadn’t been waiting for him, he would probably have kipped down at base where he had a bunk and a change of clothes on hand. But Clara
was
waiting for him, despite the lateness of the hour. As he parked his motorbike on the kerb outside his small, ground-floor flat in the western part of Hereford, just south of Whitecross Road, he could see the front-room light burning. She’d obviously ignored his instruction not to wait up.

He let himself in and stripped himself of his wet-weather gear in the narrow hallway. He could hear the TV, and as he stepped into the front room he saw Clara curled up on the sofa, fast asleep in front of some late-night discussion programme. An audience member with a neck thicker than a bulldog was getting very hot under his sizeable collar. ‘If this Abu Ra’id can’t live by our rules, he shouldn’t be allowed in our country.’ The audience clapped and the man folded his arms with obvious satisfaction. On a screen behind them was the familiar face of a bearded Islamic cleric – or ‘hate’ cleric as everyone liked to call him – whom the government had supposedly been trying to deport for more than a year now. Danny wasn’t the only one who couldn’t quite work out what the problem was with getting rid of the bastard, or quite why his wife was allowed a large, comfortable house in the suburbs that so far as he could tell they didn’t pay for. Ra’id’s face had been all over the place since the bombing, though whether he was involved or not nobody really seemed to know.

Danny stepped across the room and switched the TV off. Clara was roused by the sudden silence. She sat up quickly, her blonde hair mussed and her tired face confused, as though she didn’t know where she was. But then she saw Danny, and her features softened.

‘You’re back,’ she said.

‘I told you not to wait up.’

She gave a winsome little shrug. ‘Bed’s too big without you,’ she said.

Danny sat next to her, a wave of tiredness crashing over him again.

‘Hard day at the office?’

‘Just the usual,’ Danny said evasively.

‘You can tell me, you know.’

Clara had a habit of saying things like that. Of trying to find out what Danny had been up to. The nitty-gritty of his job. Deep down, he understood why. Clara had been through the mill out in Syria, where he’d found her deep in the rebel heartland. Most couples got together over a few pints down the local. Danny and Clara’s relationship had kicked off among the ordnance and flying rounds of a devastating civil war. She’d seen him at his work and she’d gone through things at the hands of the Syrians that nobody should have to experience. It had changed her, forever. The bed might be too big without Danny, but barely anything ever happened when they were in it. Again, Danny knew why. Intimacy was difficult for her after the abuse the
mukhabarat
had inflicted on her.

But Syria had changed Danny, too. More than changed him – turned his life on its head. Maybe that was the reason he had these moments when he felt he hardly knew himself. Maybe that was the reason some piece-of-shit drug dealer had wound up with three 9mm rounds at the back of his throat that evening. And would Clara understand
that
? Of course she wouldn’t. Danny didn’t even understand it himself.

‘Just the usual,’ he repeated, in a tone that indicated that the conversation was over.

They sat in silence for a moment. ‘Can I get you anything?’ Clara said finally.

‘I’m being moved to London,’ Danny said. ‘Starting tomorrow. I don’t know how long for. Could be a while.’

‘But . . . that’s
great
!’ A pause. ‘Isn’t it?’

Danny shrugged. ‘It is what it is.’ He’d already decided he wasn’t going to mention Buckingham. If anything, Clara hated him more than Danny did. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to speculate with her about the nature of the op. Clara was a sweet girl. She wouldn’t even begin to understand or accept the kind of things he might be called upon to do.

‘Maybe you could stay with me?’

‘No, Clara,’ he said in an unintentionally withering voice. ‘I won’t be staying with you. It doesn’t work like that.’

Her eyes widened, and Danny instantly regretted being so short with her. ‘We can see more of each other, though,’ he added.

She smiled, relief obvious in her face. ‘What will you be doing?’ she asked. ‘In London, I mean.’

‘Just . . . general security,’ Danny said. ‘After the bombings and everything. All hands on deck.’ He knew it was an explanation Clara would understand. As a medic working out of St Mary’s Hospital, she and her colleagues had been inundated with casualties. She’d been at work at the time of the explosion and had by all accounts been one of the few doctors that had managed to keep their heads as the injured started arriving in their droves. Which kind of figured: Clara was used to explosions, after all. But Danny didn’t feel like reminding her that the Regiment were only ever called in when a violent outcome could be expected.

She started snuggling up to him. ‘You’re all tense,’ she said.

‘Long day,’ Danny replied. The image of the dealer he’d shot in the throat jumped back into his head. The thudding of his skull against the cobblestones. The liquid mixture of blood and rain spreading from his body.

There was a sharp knock at the door.

‘What the . . .’ he muttered.

‘It’s four in the morning,’ Clara said.

More knocking. Louder this time, as though someone was using the flat of their fist.

Danny stood up. ‘Don’t move,’ he said quietly. And to himself, he said:
When someone comes knocking at this hour, it’s never good news.
He instantly thought of his dad, who was stuck in a wheelchair in a ground-floor flat not far from here. And then he thought once more of his recent briefing back at base: of Five and Buckingham, who would think nothing of sending someone round in the middle of the night if they needed to. He stepped down the corridor, noiselessly approaching the solid wooden front door. When he reached it, he peered through the spyhole.

‘Fuck’s sake,’ he muttered when he saw who was on his doorstep.

Danny’s brother Kyle looked worse every time he saw him – which was, admittedly, as infrequently as Danny could make it. He was a waster – a jailbird and an alcoholic. Danny seemed to have spent half his life digging him out of bad situations of his brother’s own making. Even through the spyhole Danny could see Kyle was in a bad way tonight. Dishevelled, several day’s growth on his face, dark rings under his eyes. Sunken cheeks, the left one badly swollen, several shades of purple and red and bisected by a thin line of steristrip. A professional job – Danny could tell his brother was fresh from A&E. He opened the door.

‘What do you want?’

‘Mate!’ Kyle said with a forced smile. A sour waft of stale booze punched Danny in the face. Kyle was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. The T-shirt was soaking wet, and clung to his thin, bony body.

‘It’s late, Kyle, I was just going to bed.’

Kyle’s grin fell away. ‘You’ve got to help me, mate,’ he breathed. He looked over his shoulder – a dramatic gesture, but there was something in his eyes that Kyle wasn’t faking. A look of genuine fear. ‘Can I come in?’

For a moment Danny didn’t move. Then, after a few seconds, he reluctantly stepped aside. ‘If you have to,’ he said.

Kyle entered the flat and walked unsteadily up the hallway and into the front room. He stood in the doorway for a moment, then looked back at Danny. ‘Didn’t know you had a fuck buddy,’ he said.

‘Call her that again, Kyle, and you’ll need someone to fix the other side of your face.’ Danny pushed past him and answered Clara’s questioning look with a single word: ‘Brother.’ He’d warned Clara about Kyle.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ Clara said in a small voice from her place on the sofa. Kyle didn’t reply. He and Danny stood opposite each other, a couple of metres apart.

‘Tried calling,’ Kyle said. ‘But you didn’t pick up, as usual.’

Danny’s personal mobile phone was lying powered off on the floor by the sofa.

‘Some of us have jobs to go to,’ Danny said.

‘What was it today, running up hills with rocks on your back? Laser Quest with your knucklehead friends?’

‘Something like that. Better than staying home with a bottle of Scotch. You’re rat-arsed, Kyle. What the hell do you want?’

‘Got a bit of a s. . . s. . . situation,’ his brother said. He had suddenly affected a casual air, but still had to have three goes at saying the word ‘situation’. ‘You know, business-wise.’

Danny almost laughed. The only business Kyle ever had was with the guy behind the counter at the discount booze store.

‘Got a bit of a hitch in the supply chain,’ Kyle continued. ‘Nothing serious. Just need a bit of muscle to sort it out. Thought I’d give you first refusal on the job, seeing as that’s your game. You know, muscle . . .’

‘Seriously, Kyle, what the
fuck
are you talking about? Who did that to your face?’

‘Well, are you interested, or
not
?’ Kyle had suddenly turned aggressive, but Danny could hear the hint of panic in his voice. He caught his brother’s glance again, and only then did he notice it: it was bright in the room, but Kyle’s pupils were large. Dilated. Danny felt his contempt for his brother double. Not only drunk, but high.

‘What is it?’ he asked quietly. ‘Ketamine? MDMA? You’ve got a nice little cocktail going, by the look and smell of you. I thought you were clean of that shit.’

Kyle was in the corner of the room now, diagonal to the door. A trapped animal. His dilated eyes darted around. In an instant, his demeanour had changed yet again. Defensive. ‘I’m not here for a lecture,’ he breathed. ‘Specially not from
you
.’

‘Then what
are
you here for?’ He paused. ‘Money?’

The word ‘money’ caught Kyle’s attention, but only for a moment. He screwed up his face, as though he were suppressing some violent emotion. ‘It’s not my fault, okay?’ he muttered, almost as though he was talking to himself. ‘It’s not my fucking
fault
.’

‘Danny,’ Clara said quietly. ‘He needs help. He’s been using.’

‘Of
course
he’s been using.’ Danny fronted up to his brother. ‘Spit it out,’ he whispered.

Kyle’s face was a picture of conflict. ‘They should know this kind of thing happens all the time.’

‘
Who
should know?’

‘The Poles.’

‘Which Poles, Kyle?’

‘What do you mean,
which
Poles? The ones who run Hereford.’

Danny nodded. He understood what Kyle was talking about. Every town had its drug problems, and Hereford was worse than most. He’d heard the rumours that a Polish crew was flooding the street with everything from cannabis to heroin. The needle-exchange programmes had never been so busy. Hardly surprising that Kyle had fallen in – or should that be fallen out – with them.

‘So what exactly
has
happened?’

‘They lost some product.’

‘
They
lost some product. Or
you
lost it for them?’

Kyle’s face twisted again. ‘Some bastard junkie stole it from me!’ he exploded. ‘I told the Poles. I
told
them it wasn’t my fault, but they still want their money. But I’m not paying them. You can go and put the shits up them, get them off my back. It’s what you’re good at, isn’t it?’

Silence in the room. Danny stared at his brother. He was family, sure, but Danny felt nothing but contempt for him. If he was in a mess, it was of his own making. Danny had stopped taking responsibility for Kyle a long time ago.

‘Get out,’ he said.

A pause.

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Kyle breathed. His hands were shaking slightly. He looked pathetic.

‘I said, get out.’

‘What are you going to do about it, little brother?’ Kyle’s voice had gone a little higher. ‘Play your hard-man macho bullshit? Beat up your own brother? Shoot me with one of your big fucking guns? What would Daddy say? Or Uncle Taff? He’s been off the scene for a while. Maybe he doesn’t love you any more?’ Kyle laughed at his own joke, but the laughter descended into a wheezing cough.

Danny turned to Clara. ‘Make sure he doesn’t steal anything,’ he said.