His appearance prompted a slow hand clap. Around him, the sea of faces was hostile. They had been waiting for him, one angry woman informed him, for over twenty-five minutes. Perhaps next time he travelled he might bring an alarm clock with him?
His seat, needless to say, was right at the back of the aircraft. Toilet class. He was shown there by the lemon-sucking stewardess, and had to endure the eye-rolling and barely disguised impatience of an almost entirely female complement of economy class passengers.
The stewardess directed him to a seat next to an amply proportioned woman, some fifty years old, who smelt strongly of coconut tanning oil.
She looked him up and down.
'Well,' she murmured purposefully, noting the uncomfortable tightness of his trousers.
'Aren't I the lucky one!'
Alex's spirits sank. How long was this fucking flight? Eight hours?
'Are you all.. . together?' he asked, indicating the other passengers.
'Well, it'd probably be true to say that we're all here for much the same reason,' the woman said with a small smile.
'Which is?'
'To meet Gambian boys, of course. Bit of the old Shirley Valentine.'
'Ah,' said Alex.
'Right.'
'Africans are properly appreciative of the fuller figure, you see. And they know how to woo a girl without ever mentioning DIY or football.'
'Or their jobs?' ventured Alex.
'Or their jobs she agreed.
'Quite right. I'm Maureen, by the way.
'Alex.'
'So what brings you to the Gambia, Alex?'
'Oh, I never talk about my job. Too boring.'
'You came here for .. . work?'
Mistake. Serves me right for being a sinartarse, he thought.
'I'm in, er, travel,' he explained.
'So you.. . get around a bit?'
'Here and there.' He shrugged.
She nodded. Taxiing into the oncoming breeze, the big 777 started its long race to take-off.
'And do you like big girls, Alex?'
Blimey, he thought. Talk about cutting to the chase.
'Did you have a good holiday, Maureen?' he asked her, with what he hoped was professional-sounding interest.
In answer she fished a polaroid photograph from her purse. It showed a young Gambian man, nude except for a pair of sunglasses. He was about seventeen, slender and leaning backwards to counterbalance his evident enthusiasm. The plane hurtled into the air, pressing them back into their seats.
'There s my answer, Alex. Now can I please have yours? Do you like big girls?'
He turned to her, took in the painfully sunburnt flesh, the hennaed hair, the small hopeful eyes.
'Maureen,' he said.
'I do like them. But I've got one waiting for me at home.'
'Hm,' she said, unconvinced.
An hour or so after take-off, breakfast was served.
Uncertain of what was waiting for him at Heathrow, Alex ate the lot. With a bit of luck there'd be some lunch, too. Trouble, as every soldier knew, was best faced on a full stomach. And with a well-rested mind.
The adrenalin rush that accompanied violent action was invariably followed by exhaustion and Alex slipped gratefully into sleep. One of the few advantages of his present situation perhaps the only advantage was that he would be able to see Sophie again and he didn't want to appear completely knackered when he did.
For a long while, scenes from the previous night replayed themselves before his eyes. The smell of rotting mangoes and the river, the clicking of that severed windpipe, tracer scorching across the clearing, the screams of the maimed RUF men, the stillness of the Puma pilot as his aircraft danced beneath him, the Puma enfolded in flame against the sodden grey of the jungle, Don Hammond pitching forward, the smack of SLR rounds impacting into Steve Dowson's shoulder and Ricky Sutton's thigh... The images faded. They were not ready to join the longer established nightmares in the vault of Alex's memory it would be weeks and perhaps months before that happened but they had been faced. He had always tried to make horror his friend.
It showed, Sophie told him, on his face.
FIVE.
Sophie Wells was the sister of Jamie Wells, who had been an officer cadet at Sandhurst with Alex and was now a Coldstream Guards lieutenant.
Jamie and Alex had met towards the end of the course. It had been a Friday night and with his ten year-old Kaman-Ghia out of commission, Alex had been looking for a lift into London, where he had arranged to meet a mate for a few beers.
Jamie had not only been driving to London but to Chelsea, which suited Alex perfectly. Dave Constantine, the colleague in question, had recently been posted as Permanent Staff Instructor to 21 SAS and Alex had arranged to meet him at the bar in the territorial battalion's King's Road HQ. Jamie, meanwhile, was going to a party in Cadogan Mansions, behind Sloane Square.
On their arrival in London Alex stood Jamie a drink at the bar at the Duke of York's HQ, where Alex was handed a note. Dave Constantine, he discovered, had been called away at the last moment to replace one of the other PSIs on an escape and evasion exercise on the Brecon Beacons.
Jamie had suggested that the SAS man come with him to the party, which was being given by his sister.
Alex hadn't been keen; to spend the evening with a hundred braying Sloanes was very low on his wish list
'What does your sister do?' he asked doubtfully.
'You'll have to ask her.' Jamie grinned.
'Right.' Alex smiled grimly.
'I get it. It's a survival exercise. You've had to survive the beatings and the bollockings, so now I've got to survive the Taras and Tamaras.'
Jamie returned his gaze.
'Think of it that way if you like,' he said equably.
'But you might also enjoy yourself.'
'Yeah, right.'
'What have you got to lose?'
Alex conceded defeat.
The party was on the third floor of a nineteenth century mansion block, and seemed to be taking place on the stairs and in the lift as well. Alex had expected an uncomfortable roomful of red-faced young men in corduroys and tractor-tyre shoes; what he actually encountered was the best part of an acre of dizzyingly beautiful women.
He had also expected to look out of place; in fact, although some of the handful of men present were expensively dressed, most looked as if they had bought their gear off an Isle of Dogs market trader.
The look was as fake as their cockney accents and movie-gangster rhyming slang, but Alex reckoned that his cropped military haircut, Essex Stock Cars T-shirt and old Levis would probably pass muster among them.
Alex's first hint of Sophie Wells's existence was when a gold and turquoise whirlwind blew past him trailing scent, silk and male admirers. She came to rest briefly in front of Jamie for just long enough, in fact, to present her brother with a kiss and an introduction to a dewy-faced teenager in a chiffon micro-skirt 'she's the new 'face' of Prada, so I want you to make absolutely sure she's in bed by 10.30!' then was suddenly right there in front of him.
'So.' She smiled.
