'I told you, that's classified information,' Doyle insisted. 'Let's just say I need to talk to him about something important.'
Like the future of Ireland?
'Can you give us any details about him?' Calloway persisted.
'Tell me what you know, I'll fill in the holes if I can.'
'That's nice of you,' Mason chided.
Calloway shot him an angry stare then picked up one of the files from the small table.
He began reading.
Details about Robert Neville, background, upbringing, training.
It was the usual shit.
Doyle listened, his attention still fixed on the house.
Calloway dropped the file back on to the table when he'd finished.
'Well?' he said.
Doyle shrugged.
'Anything to add? Any holes to fill in?'
Doyle wasn't slow to catch the note of scorn in the policeman's tone. He smiled.
'He's armed,' Doyle said.
'How do you know?' Calloway asked.
'I know him.'
'How well do you know him, Doyle, how do we know you're not involved with this somehow?' Mason said. 'I mean, you knew he was here, you knew he was armed and yet you still didn't contact us. Why?'
'You know, you're a rare kind of man, Mason,' Doyle said. 'You actually are as fucking stupid as you look, aren't you? Jesus Christ, the last fucking thing I wanted was coppers swarming all over the place. I didn't want Neville panicked, I didn't want him to know anybody had found him. The last thing I wanted was for him to look out of his window and see uniforms. Who called you lot in anyway?'
'A neighbour reported seeing someone trying to break into the house,' Calloway said. 'A patrol car investigated. When they tried to get inside they were shot at. They called for back-up.' The DI shrugged. 'It just escalated from there.'
'If Neville shot at them he obviously wasn't trying to hit them,' Doyle said quietly. 'Because if he had been, you'd be scraping their brains off the road now.'
'We surrounded the house, closed off the road at both ends,' said Calloway, then his tone changed. 'Anyway, if you were sitting out here all the time, you must have seen what was going on, you must have heard the shots.'
Doyle didn't answer.
'What would you have done on your own, Doyle?' Mason said challengingly. 'Stormed the place?'
The counter terrorist reached for his cigarettes and lit one, blowing smoke in Mason's direction.
'So, what do we do now?' Calloway said.
Doyle perched on one corner of the table, eyes still locked on number ten London Road.
'We wait,' he murmured.
8.31 A.M.
'They're going to kill you, Bob.'
Robert Neville turned from the window and looked at his wife.
Julie Neville brushed some strands of blonde hair from her face and shifted uncomfortably on the sofa, her eyes never leaving her husband.
He pulled the. 459 Smith and Wesson automatic from his belt and worked the slide, chambering a round.
Julie swallowed hard as she saw him advancing towards her and, for fleeting seconds, she thought he might strike her.
Neville leaned close, his face only inches from hers.
'They're going to kill me, are they?' he said quietly and, as he spoke, she could smell the whisky on his breath.
She lowered her gaze slightly.
Neville reached out with his free hand and gently stroked her cheek with his finger.
God, how smooth her skin felt. Like a marble statue.
'Do you want them to kill me?' he whispered.
She shook her head almost imperceptibly.
'Do you?' he said, more insistently.
'No,' she snapped, glaring at him. Her expression gradually softened. 'I just want you to let us go,' she finally breathed. 'If not me, then at least let Lisa go, she didn't ask to be a part of all this.'
'She's happy enough, I haven't harmed her, I'd never harm her,' Neville said. 'I'd rather die first. You and Lisa are all I've got.'
'Then why are you holding us prisoner here?' Julie asked, attempting to mask the anger in her voice. But it was anger tinged with anxiety.
And fear?
'You were the one who wanted to leave,' Neville reminded her. 'You were the one who was going to take Lisa away from me.'
'It was for her own good, Bob.'
'Bollocks. I'm her father.'
'Then why do you hurt her?'
Neville gripped Julie's jaw in one firm hand, his forehead pressed almost against hers.
'You tell me when I've ever hurt her,' he rasped. 'I've never laid a fucking finger on her.'
Julie tried to pull free of his grip, away from the smell of whisky.
'What about your drinking?' she snapped. 'Or are you too pissed now to remember it?'
He stepped back.
'Every time you were home on leave you spent all day and night drunk,' Julie continued. 'Since you left the army it's all you've done. How many bottles a day is it now, Bob?'
'What the fuck do you expect?'
She regarded him warily.
'You talk as if I'm the only one,' he said angrily.
'You're the only one I'm married to. I don't care how other soldiers cope with it. I don't care how many of them get pissed, fuck other women, get into fights. I only care about you.'
'Is that why you were going to leave me?' he said softly. 'Leave me and take Lisa with you. Don't tell me you care about me, Julie. Not when you were going to take away the only thing in this miserable, useless fucking life that I ever cared about, that I ever loved.'
He held her in that unrelenting gaze.
'Do you still love me?'
She swallowed hard. 'Yes.'
'Liar,' Neville rasped, the knot of muscles at the side of his jaw pulsing angrily.
'You've changed,' she told him. 'You're not-'
'Not the man you married?' he hissed. 'Are you surprised I'm different? After what I've seen, is it any wonder? I've risked my fucking life for this country, for the army, for people who'd spit in my fucking face one day and laugh with me the next. And I was supposed to take it. And I did, because that was what I was ordered to do. That's what we were all ordered to do. We were in Northern Ireland to keep the peace. Jesus, that's a fucking laugh. What a great job we did. How many thousands have been killed out there since 1969? And what about here? How many have died in car bombs or pub bombings? How many men, women and children?'
