into the setting sunlight at Dover Priory Station he felt the satisfied journey’s end feeling all travellers encounter when so close to home. It grew uncomfortably stronger when the taxi pulled up outside his house in Markland Road. Having paid the taxi he saw Mary at the window and waved and when hr got to the door it opened in welcome.
“Oh I’ve been so scared. It’s good to have you home.” She said as she embraced him tightly.
He said nothing and let the smells of the house and its warm familiarity of embrace him as passionately as he embraced her. He drank in her familiar smell, Obsession perfume mingled with fabric conditioner and her herbal shampoo. He buried his nose in her blonde, untidy hair. He felt the bump against him and deliberately touched the safely covered womb protecting his unborn child.
“Where’s Conor?” He very suddenly said.
“He’s asleep. He knew you were coming home and he was so excited all day he fell asleep.”
“Something smells good.” David said to allay guilty thoughts of his son’s disappointment.
“It’s steak and kidney pudding. I made it myself.”
“Lovely. You’d better sit down. I’ll sort everything else out. I’ll just pop up and see Conor.”
David took his bag upstairs and put it in their room. He felt as if it had been an age from home. He went into the next room and saw his son curled up on a small bed with a small, light blue fluffy blanket covering him. The floor was strewn with toys; a fluffy Pooh Bear lay across a bright blue Thomas the Tank Engine toy and everywhere brightly coloured bricks lay at odd angles in strange piles and shapes.
He leant over and kissed his son’s warm forehead. The boy didn’t stir. David wiped a lone tear from his cheek. The sheer relief of his return washed over him. He thought of the families of the murdered men and he flushed with shame at his joy at being home. When he got to the door he looked back, sighed and for a moment was taken over by the strength of a resolution, a strong desire to be a protector. He knew it to be his job to be one of the people who protected families from men like Wheeler, Spencer and Stanton, though as he descended the stairs he wondered for how long.
Down stairs Mary was sitting back on pillows on the only chair she found comfortable. He went over and kneeling put his head in her lap. She stroked his head.
“I had to kill a man Mary.”
There was a pause and her hand stopped moving for a second or two then resumed.
“Better him than you Davey.”
He raised his head and she saw his eyes were awash with tears.
“I don’t know if it’s the job for me you know.”
“Oh sure it is. You weren’t just lucky. You’re a strong, fast and determined man, just like your father.”
“I could have been killed.” He said and she looked him in the eyes.
“You weren’t though. You’re tired and you’ve had a hard time and you’d not be a good man if you didn’t have feelings like that and I married a good man.” He went to speak, but she put her finger to his lips.
“Go have a wash and we’ll get the tea on. We can talk when you’ve had a rest. Jack Fulton phoned and said you’d need time and TLC for a day or two. He said you’d not be going back on duty rota until November. Now go wash. You’re home now.” She took her finger away kissed it and put it back to his lips.”
He stood up and left the room, stopping to turn and blow her a kiss. When he had gone she crossed herself looked to the ceiling mouthed a ‘thank you’ and wiped the gathering tears from her eyes.
Chapter 73
Glasgow
6 p.m.
April 18th
It was a pleasant drive across to Ardrossan on the Atlantic coast. Clarky owned an ex army nineteen eighty- four Land Rover series three, used in Northern Ireland, but with the ‘mesh’ protection removed. It still had the ‘high velocity’ HV protection of the armoured wind shield. Clarky was very proud of it, though to make it less obtrusive he had re-sprayed it dark blue.
They had left Motherwell at four thirty in the afternoon. The A72 took them out of red brick and house crowded Motherwell onto the A71 and they traversed Scotland westwards into the pretty green fields of Ayrshire. The Ayrshire dairy cows scattered amongst the greenery flashed a camouflage pattern across Stanton’s eyes as a steady fifty miles an hour took the two men in mutual silence into Kilmarnock.
Cold as it was getting in the pre night cooling Stanton felt the warmth and comfort of the Landy’s heaters and felt cocooned behind the strong metal and the bullet proof glass. Ahead of him were some unknown dangers, the usual companions in his otherwise single existence, and several times he looked at Clarky thinking of their Legion days, the brutal punishments and harsh training which had hardened their bodies and the bloody deeds that had hardened their minds. For a moment warm and calm he reflected that it might be time to quit, but at just over an hour they entered the outskirts of Ardrossan and Stanton felt his destiny inexorable draw him back into the ‘game’.
As Clarky pulled up in the Ardrossan town railway station car park he turned to his friend.
“Here we are. The marina is up that way.” Clarky pointed up Prince’s Street.
The moment was pregnant with unspoken thoughts. Neither man wanted to impose his thoughts on the other, but both sensed the other’s fears.
They had trained together and served in the First Foreign Cavalry Regiment and seen action in the first Gulf war. After their short, but intensive Legion training he and Clarky had found themselves in the Persian Gulf in September of 1990. Both had left the Legion around the same time; Clarky had made senior corporal and yet of the two only Stanton had seen the carnage of Rwanda, in his case a special transfer.
Having left the Land Rover both men stood looking at each other.
“Is this mission sacred?” Clarky volunteered echoing the Legionnaires’ code.
“No not really. No honour and no fidelity I’m afraid.”
Clarky suddenly stepped forward and embraced Stanton. Stanton somewhat unwillingly embraced his old comrade.
“We are still family you and I. We are still brothers.” Clarky said. “Take the boat, but whatever the prize at the end of this ‘mission’ is you must consider sailing away.”
“I’ll think about it, take care of your self my friend.' Stanton replied and then he watched Clarky get into the dark blue light armoured vehicle and drive away with the lowering sun on its back window.
This moment defined him; always alone. As an orphan his only family had been the Legion and after that there had been no-one. He shrugged off the thoughts and claimed new ones, those of stealing a boat.
It was half five as Stanton headed for the station cafe; in a bag Clarky had given him were his weapon, still in the plastic bag, tools and a map of the area. He ordered coffee from the half hearted woman behind the till and sat in the dim light on a high stool in the corner of the small empty room.
The map showed him the marina and its sea ward entrance. He knew that he couldn’t simply take a boat. He would be spotted, even after dark. Looking at the landscape he saw a better plan. To the north of the marina was Mariner’s View which had a path towards the end of which was the northern half of the narrow marina entrance. Stanton felt sure that if he could wait on a boat leaving, in the dark, he could drop into the water and steal aboard the boat from that point, as it passed. He sipped his coffee and wondered on the likelihood of a boat going out at night from the Marina into the uncertain waters of the Firth of Clyde. His plan B was to swim the marina from that point and climb aboard a boat after dark, circumventing the watchman and the locked jetties. There was no ‘gate’ to the sea and though sailing out under motor power was noisy he felt sure he could get away with the night to cover him and the loss of the boat wouldn’t be noticed until morning.
His coffee finished Stanton walked up Prince’s Street and up to the marina. There was little activity. He looked at the usual security systems, metal spiked gates and punch code entry systems. There was a marina office with a watch man and CCTV pointing only towards the boats, sitting like white sardines tied to floating wooden jetties. Stanton noted the CCTV angles with DIC in mind. He thought of Spencer.
He looked across the harbour to Mariners Walk scoping for witnesses. There were four cars parked there, but
