secret.’
Aggy nodded, her thoughts turning to her own situation. ‘And what about me?’
‘I’ve been thinking about that. You did everything right once you knew the facts. You held it all together at one point. They’ll want to keep the bio a secret; if it got out RIRA will have put some points on the board. You could play hardball with them. They’ll have no loyalty to you. The trick is to get them to decide it would be better to keep you in the fold.’
‘I meant with you,’ she said, keeping her eyes ahead.
For a second after her question he had wondered if that’s what she meant. ‘I could be useful to you, but not if they thought there was something between us.’ As soon as he said it he wondered why he had slammed the door in her face like that. But it was true. He could lever Sumners into batting for her. The man owed him enough favours. Back in the detachment was the best place for her.
Aggy lowered her head and put her hands in her pockets. She would say no more to him. There was no point.
They followed Kathryn through the automatic doors and out into the cold air.
‘This way,’ Aggy said to Kathryn and led her to a waiting police car.
Stratton climbed in the back beside them, next to Aggy. She looked away from him, out the opposite window, avoiding him as best she could in the confined space, wondering why he hadn’t sat the other side of Kathryn.
‘I should think they’ll let me go back to the obvious when the paperwork on this one is all done. You lot need looking after anyway . . . What do you think?’
Aggy never moved and continued looking out the window. Only someone who knew her very well could tell that deep inside she was smiling.
As the car left the kerb and headed away from the airport, Stratton stretched his neck from side to side and rested his head back. He’d hoped the successful end of the operation would have given him some kind of relief from the darkness that seemed to surround his soul, but it did not. Now that it was over he felt nothing had changed inside. Even the decision to return to Northern Ireland had no effect. He knew what part of the problem was. The only time he seemed to come to life was in the heat of action. Or perhaps that was just a distraction. But the closer he came to death the more alive he felt. It was like a drug though; the high lasted only as long as the fight. He thought about quitting altogether, but civvy street was on the outside in many ways. There was action to be had for sure, but it had to be found. Money became a factor, and the jobs were uncertain and usually the scraps. In the service the big ones came to you.
The East was the place to be now.That’s where the stakes were the highest. Perhaps he would never go back to Ireland. It would no longer cut it for him. It was a dead, or at least dying, war, and minuscule in comparison to other troubles in the world. The bio had been serious enough, but that card had been played by the RIRA and was more than likely now out of their deck for good. The crusades were always the ultimate. That fight would last for ever. The people and the terrain were fiercer and that made it much more interesting.
The East it was to be then. He would ask Sumners in the morning.
He glanced at Aggy. As he had always said, it was never meant to be.
