‘What about Kenny?’
‘It’s Mr Armstrong who has a problem with me.’
Irvine wanted to hear what he had to say, but still found it difficult to come to terms with the notion of letting the man in her house at this time of night.
‘I saw some things today I’d prefer not to have ever seen. What people can do to one another.’
Parker pursed his lips.
‘I saw that on the news. You were on TV.’
‘I’ve got used to that.’
‘It wasn’t me,’ he said finally.
‘I know that.’
‘That’s not who I am.’
‘I can’t comment on who you are.’
Parker sighed. ‘Let me offer this,’ he said. ‘If you allow me to come in and we have a conversation, we can put that in the favour bank in your credit. I mean, I have information that will be of interest to you as regards Russell’s employer, so ordinarily that would put you in my debt.’
Irvine raised an eyebrow. She knew that having contacts in the criminal world was all part of the game, but this guy was too slick for his own good. She hesitated and stepped back to allow Parker to come in.
‘You’ve got a nice home,’ he said as he sat on the couch in her living room.
She got the impression that he meant it.
‘I understand that these relationships can be beneficial,’ Irvine said. ‘But I want to be clear that next time we arrange a meeting in advance, okay?’
Parker nodded.
‘And any future meetings will not be at my home. In fact, I don’t want you anywhere near here again.’
He paused to look at her and nodded.
‘What’s this about, Mr Parker?’
‘You want to get right to it?’
Irvine nodded.
‘Well, I asked around like I said I would. Regarding Russell Hall’s current employment status.’
‘Uh-huh. And?’
‘I heard a name mentioned in passing.’
‘You heard it, or you knew it already but kept it to yourself until now?’
‘I thought that we agreed to be courteous?’
She said nothing, not prepared to apologise to him.
‘Do you want the name?’
‘Yes.’
‘Butler.’
‘That’s it?’ she asked. ‘No first name?’
Parker shook his head.
‘Do you know any more than that? His background or where I can find him?’
‘There’s a limit to how much I can say. I mean, you understand that, don’t you?’
‘The favour bank has strict withdrawal limits, obviously.’
Parker stood and laughed.
‘That’s a good way of putting it, yes.’ He turned and went to the door. ‘Don’t get up,’ he told her.
Irvine hadn’t moved.
‘Oh,’ Parker said, turning to her as he opened the door to the hall. ‘I think that this Butler may have worked with Johnson before. That both of them were soldiers or something in a past life.’
Irvine stared after him as he closed the door softly.
13
‘It’s been a while, Jack,’ Seth Raines told the man on the other end of the telephone line when his call was answered.
Jack Butler grunted.
‘How are things over there? Business is good?’
‘Uh…’
‘Are you drunk?’
‘No, I’m not drunk. I’m tired. It’s been a rough few days and it’s nearly three in the morning here.’
Raines looked at his watch which showed that it wasn’t quite eight at night. He always forgot about the size of the time difference.
‘Sorry.’
‘Never mind. What do you want?’
‘We’re getting out of the business.’
Raines felt like it would be best to tell Butler straight up. No preamble. He knew that Butler would not take it well. Not after Raines had ordered Butler to kill Johnson.
‘What?’ Butler asked, sounding more confused than angry.
‘We got an offer we couldn’t refuse from the Mexicans. We’re cashing out.’
‘You mean you got scared of them. The competition. They threatened you and you chickened out.’
Raines couldn’t tell if Butler was joking or not.
‘You know me better than that.’
Butler grunted again; Raines was unsure if it was anger, derision or something in between.
Raines didn’t know Butler well. Had trusted Andy Johnson’s recommendation. Johnson had been the one to float the idea that grew into the business conducted out at the compound and in the UK. Johnson had spent all the money he earned after he got out of the army — as a private security consultant in Iraq and Afghanistan — and was getting desperate for cash. Butler had worked with Johnson in Afghanistan and had contacts in the drug trade there — which he had revealed to Johnson on one particularly drunken night.
Johnson had stayed in touch with Raines. He heard about Matt Horn’s problems from Raines. Knew that he, too, was desperate for money.
For Raines it was a matter of the end justifying the means. Getting enough money together to get Horn out of the hospital and finding him a pair of artificial legs he could at least walk on. The ones he’d been given at the hospital rubbed his skin so badly that he’d been bedridden with infected blisters for weeks. And then the real infection had set in — almost killing him.
But Raines had grown to believe now that he had much more in common with Butler than with either Johnson or Matt Horn: that this line of work fed the need they both had to express themselves through violence.
In quieter moments, Raines wondered if he had always been a man who lived for violence and the adrenalin rush of it. And whether the war, the events that day after they left the poppy field and the indignities suffered by Matt at the hands of his so-called country had simply unleashed the real Seth Raines, free from the restrictions that society sought to impose.
‘Where do I get my gear now if you’re getting out — from the Mexicans?’
‘That’s up to you.’
‘You’re abandoning me, is that it?’
‘Hardly. You’ll work something out.’
‘Couldn’t be any worse than the fucking mess Horn has made of it,’ Butler snorted. ‘Your little buddy with the chemistry degree who was supposed to run the manufacturing end of things. And look at us now. See how that turned out.’
‘You’ve had more ODs too?’
‘Yeah. And I had to cover my tracks.’
‘What do you mean?’
