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‘My name is Aidan Snow, I’m an SIS operative. Call Vauxhall Cross – they’ll confirm who I am.’
‘I’m sure we’ll do that at the station,’ the CO19 member mocked.
‘Come along, please, sir,’ a second added.
‘An SIS officer is down and the shooter is getting away. Call it in!’
‘Move!’ The friendly tone evaporated.
Arriving at the secure police station, Snow was led to the front desk for processing. The duty desk officer looked up, unimpressed. The CO19 officer placed a clear plastic bag on the desk. It contained the contents of Snow’s pockets, wallet and phone.
‘Name?’
‘I’m an operative for SIS. Call them.’
‘Your name?’
Snow took a deep breath; they were only doing their jobs, all of them, if badly. ‘Aidan Snow.’
‘Right then, Mr Snow, if you’ll just press your fingers there for me, we’ll scan your prints.’
There was little point in resisting. Snow put his fingers on the scanner. He wasn’t a fan of anyone having his personal information, let alone his fingerprints.
The desk officer looked at the screen and frowned. ‘OK, we’re going to put you in a holding cell until we can confirm your identity.’
Snow shrugged. He had no idea what had been on the scanner screen or even which database had flagged up, but he knew either way he’d be in for a wait.
‘Any chance of a cup of tea?’
‘Sure. How do you take it, shaken not stirred?’
Chapter 1 (#ub089ec2e-8e05-511e-a063-0cd20b9ebafc)
Shoreham-by-Sea, UK
A victim of the credit crunch they would call him, an unavoidable casualty of an unseen enemy: the recession. Paddy Fox swallowed his pint bitterly. He was no one’s victim. He looked at the jobs page for the third time before screwing it up in a ball. The anger he felt towards them hadn’t lessened in the six weeks since it had happened, the rage he had for his former boss. He had nothing to prove. He was James ‘Paddy’ Fox, a twenty-year veteran of the SAS and worth something. If no one saw that, then sod ’em.
Fox’s mobile rang and he grabbed for it. ‘Yes?’ His guttural Scottish hue hadn’t been lessened by years of living in Hereford and then Sussex. There was a pause, which instantly told him it was a company trying to sell him something, before a voice reading from a script spoke.
‘Can I speak to Mr James Fox?’
‘You could.’ He cut the connection.
Take, take, take! The world seemed to want something from him, but not him. He flattened out the paper and circled another job, the ‘Dymex’ logo blurring in front of his eyes. Tracey still worked for them, but why he had kept a corporate ballpoint pen he didn’t know. Was it his sackcloth?
Fox downed his pint of bitter and wiped his lips on the back of his hand. Just the two for now; more later when he already knew he’d storm out of the house after arguing with Tracey. It had become an almost daily occurrence since he’d become, as he saw it, ‘redundant’. He looked across the Crown and Anchor’s dingy, deserted bar. Burt, the jowl-heavy landlord, was the only other person in the room, with the exception of ‘old Dave’, who sat in the corner like a fixture, with his paper and pint of Guinness. Fox shook his head; what a miserable pisshole of a pub. It was the only bar in Shoreham that had yet to be ‘neoned’, as he called it, to have a bit of paint slapped on, fancy lights added, and the price of the drinks doubled. As such, it was the only place where the average age of the punters was over twelve – in his mind anyway. He stood, placed his empty on the bar, and nodded at Burt as he left the pub. Outside it was rush hour, cars cutting through the narrow streets of the old town in an attempt to miss the traffic. In a way, the SAS veteran was glad he wasn’t part of the corporate world any more – the ‘rat-run rat race’. Nevertheless, he was still angry at how he had left it.
Summoned to a glass-walled meeting room, Fox had looked across with disgust at the younger man in his designer suit and signature dark-blue shirt. The man spoke as Fox’s stare remained locked onto his eyes.
‘I’m sorry, Paddy, I really am, but as you were made aware at the start of the consultation process, cuts have to be made. We’ve been as fair as we can.’
There was a pause as Leo Sawyer waited for Fox’s reply. Unable to bear the awkward silence, Fox’s line manager, Janet Cope, coughed to clear her throat.
‘James, we really are sorry to let you go but it’s been decided we need two sales engineers, not three.’
Fox stared at each of ‘the suits’ in turn. ‘What about the position in Saudi?’ Fox’s voice was loud in the small, glass-walled room.
Cope flinched and Sawyer nervously straightened his tie
‘You weren’t suitable for the role. Sorry,’ Sawyer replied, in what he seemed to think was a sympathetic manner. He felt Fox’s green eyes bore into him.
‘But I speak Arabic! Can any of the other candidates?’ Fox had started to turn a shade redder than normal.
Cope gasped. ‘Now, James, I understand that you’re upset, but we don’t need to shout.’
Fox cast her a contemptuous look. ‘Only my mother calls me James.’
Cope herself turned a shade of pink and looked down.
Sawyer pushed a sheet of paper across the table to Fox. ‘If you have a look at this you’ll see we’re paying you in full for your unused holiday time, three months’ redundancy pay – as per your contract – and an additional bonus for all your hard work over the last five years.’
‘Six years. I’ve been here since 2002.’ Fox picked up the sheet and scanned the thirty-eight lines.
‘Of course, six years. My mistake.’
‘Your redundancy is effective immediately, as of the end of today. That means you can start looking for work from tomorrow. We wouldn’t want to stop you from finding another job. We really are truly sorry.’ Cope smiled that ‘monkey smile’ Fox had hated ever since the day she’d become his boss six months earlier.
Fox folded the letter, placed it in his shirt pocket, and stood. He stared again at both suits. Sawyer was about to speak but Fox held up his hand.
‘Thank you for your sincerity.’
Heads turned as Fox crossed the open-plan office to his desk; some tried not to make eye contact, others tried to look sympathetic. Either way, to him they were just pathetic. His two sales colleagues, those that weren’t being pushed out, were, unsurprisingly, nowhere to be seen. He reached his desk and started to empty its drawers into his pilot case. Fox had always disliked Sawyer. Ever since the last Christmas do, when Tracey had let slip he’d been in ‘Desert Storm’, the man had constantly quizzed him about his past. Sawyer – a member, he claimed, of the ‘territorials’ – had then tried to take the whole of sales and marketing on a team-building paintballing weekend. As marketing director, Tracey had gone and according to her Leo was ‘such a laugh’. At the next work event, Fox had caught him staring at her and given him the nickname ‘Eagle-eyed Action Man’. In fact, the only real action Fox could envisage Sawyer getting was from behind at the local gay bar.
Looking up, Fox saw the security guard leave the MD’s office with a clipboard in his hand. He bore the man no ill will.
‘Hi, Mick. Are you going to march me off the premises? ‘
‘Sorry.’ He put the clipboard on Fox’s desk. ‘I’m going to need the car keys and your signature here.’
Shaking his head, Fox took the keys to his BMW three series and dropped them into Mick’s outstretched palm. ‘Of course you are, and I’m going to walk three miles to the train station.’
‘Thanks.’ Mick cast a glance around before saying, almost in a whisper, ‘I don’t suppose Mr Sawyer has offered to drive you in his Z4?’
‘I’m not queer.’
Mick suppressed a smile. ‘It’s my break in ten minutes – I’ll take you to the station.’
‘That would be good pal, thanks.’
It was the way of the world. Mick had more decency than all of them. He patted Fox on the shoulder and left him to finish his bags. Fox continued to shove his personal papers into the pockets of his case. Sawyer and Cope remained cocooned in the meeting room, eyes glued to documents, pretending to look busy and hoping he would leave. Fox closed the case and walked towards the stairs. As he passed the meeting room he tapped on the window, causing both occupants to snap their necks to the right. Fox smiled and held up his middle finger.
Fox tried to forget that awful day as he crossed the road towards the river and used the pedestrian bridge to make his way home. The tide was out as usual and the river had turned into a thick, muddy smudge. Bloody awful if you asked him, but then Tracey hadn’t when she’d bought the house that overlooked it. As he reached the opposite side he could hear them already, the local kids from the flats out again on their ‘mini motos’, zipping between cars. Jim would be outraged. Jim was always outraged.
‘Get off the bloody road! I’ll call the police!’ Jim Reynolds, retired decorator and moral voice of the street, yelled after the miniature motorbikes.
Fox laughed. ‘Good evening, Jim.’ He liked his neighbour, even if he made fun of him.
‘Is it? I’ve had them effing kids tormenting me for the last hour! Shouldn’t they be at school?’ He waved his hedge scissors.
‘Jim, it’s almost six.’
‘Oh, well, at work then, or doing their homework. At their age, I was painting houses.’
‘So are they, with spray cans.’
The area had been touted as the latest urban development for professional people with two point four children and a BMW. The truth, however, was that the kids from the local council flats saw the quiet, pothole-free roads of Shoreham beach as their private racetrack.
The old man removed his gardening gloves and scratched his head. ‘Any more news on the job front?’
Fox shrugged. ‘Who wants to employ an old soldier like me?’
‘That’s the problem – no gratitude. They should have given you a medal.’
Reynolds knew that, as a member of the SAS, Fox had been sent into Iraq. Fox hadn’t been a member of Bravo Two Zero, as all those who knew the truth of his past seemed to think, but a deep-penetration mission which had never been publicised. It had been their job to recce the approach to Baghdad in advance of the coalition’s arrival, an arrival which hadn’t come, at least not for ten years. This mission, he never talked about. Reynolds, himself a veteran of Suez, had great respect for Fox.
‘Maybe when we’re both dead they’ll put plaques on our houses?’ Fox smiled.
There was the sound of bass-heavy music from behind them and Tracey Fox, his wife of five years, raced up the road in her convertible Saab.
‘Here she comes, Ghetto Gertrude!’
Reynolds chuckled as Tracey pulled up onto the drive. ‘Hello, love.’
‘Hi, Jim.’ She smiled warmly then changed her face when she spoke to Fox. ‘The sooner you move that old heap of yours out of the garage the better. I don’t know why you keep it!’
‘It’s a classic, love.’ It was the conversation they had each evening when she was forced to park her new car on the drive.
‘Help me with my bags then.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ Fox winked at Reynolds and made for the car.
Reynolds picked up his hedge scissors and continued to trim his already perfect shrubs.
Fox followed his wife inside with her laptop bag, which she complained was too heavy to carry. He found her looking through the mail.
‘So, tell me, what have you been up to today while I’ve been out at work?’ It was a daily question, thrown at him with growing disdain.
Fox placed the bag on the floor and took a breath. ‘I went online, put my CV on Monster, checked my email, and fixed the tap in the kitchen.’
Tracey nodded. ‘And?’
‘And what?’
‘Did you call any of those agents I gave you details of?’ Her hands were now on her hips.
He looked at the gap between her blouse buttons and the red of her bra. She had a great pair of tits. ‘No. I’ll do it tomorrow.’
Her expression grew sour. ‘You’ve been saying that for the past week, Paddy!’
‘I know, love, I know.’ Here came the lecture.
‘You’re not going to get a new job sitting on your arse all day long.’
‘Then how can I use the computer?’
She ignored his attempt at levity. ‘It’s been almost two months now.’
‘It’s been six weeks.’
‘Exactly. When the redundancy money runs out, what then?’ Her eyes narrowed.
Fox sighed. They had met at Dymex, where she at least still worked. ‘I’ve got enough saved and, besides, you earn twice as much as I did.’
‘What? You want to live off me; you, a man, want to live off me?’ The argument wasn’t new and their lines were well rehearsed.
‘Don’t be sexist.’ He loved to goad his oh so PC wife. ‘I’m not going to “ponce” off you. I’ll find something.’
She turned and headed upstairs. ‘I’m going to have a shower.’
Fox watched her arse twitch beneath her tight skirt; even when she was angry he still fancied her. He spoke beneath his breath. ‘Hi, dear, how are you? Have a nice day? Don’t worry…’ He smirked to himself. Right, he’d bung a risotto into the microwave and uncork a bottle of the Chilean Merlot she liked, that’d calm her down for a bit.
Paddington Green Secure Police Station, London
Snow signed for his belongings at the front desk. ‘Should I be honoured you came in person?’
‘Yes,’ Patchem said flatly.
The desk officer gave Snow a stern look. ‘You’re free to go.’
‘Much obliged.’
‘In future, for heaven’s sake, if someone says they’re an SIS officer, call us to ask.’
‘Very well, sir.’ The desk officer showed no sign of accepting Patchem’s reprimand. ‘Don’t let me keep you.’
Outside they got into Patchem’s Lexus and drove away.
‘Thanks, Jack. So why did you come?’
